


"Sky Hunter, you will be reborn as Bright Storm.”

by ImperialParagons



Series: Tal'shanri, Barsen'thor [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-03 21:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 68
Words: 49,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14577786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperialParagons/pseuds/ImperialParagons
Summary: Loose retelling of the prelude to the Shadow of Revan story line from the PoV of a Chiss Jedi Consular.Comments welcome!





	1. “The Seer saw this and failed to speak so I must.”

“Barsen’thor, we’re being hailed by a droid with a priority message. It says it has Alpha Level clearance,” the fact that it was Zenith’s voice on the other end of the speaker and not Felix’s was enough to confirm the call’s authenticity. After the incident with senator Grell Zennith had taken a personal interest in monitoring comm frequencies.   
  
It was a task that Tal’shanri sensed reminded him of his time in the Balmorran resistance. Even running a political campaign hadn’t had the nearly mesmeric quality on the twi’leck as scanning every message for threats did; his total focus shifted the way the force flowed around him — it was never quite in totally harmony. Yet,the task seemed to draw him closer to the light side, and that made the occasional inconvenience worth it. “It’s broadcasting decryption protocol on a sub frequency, do you—“   
  
“I can confirm the clearance codes,” Felix interjected a second later. “Applying decryption and patching it through to your quarters now.” Both men disconnected the same instant, leaving the line open for the droid. Things had gotten better between them lately, with Felix begrudgingly accepting that Zenith was outside the chain of command and Zenith agreeing to at least make at attempt to follow Republic protocol.   
  
After a brief moment the familiar chirps of an astromech came on. “Tal’shanri: report to commander Darock on the Republic Fleet for Priority Alpha Mission. Location attached.”    
  
The droid disconnected with out waiting for an answer. Odd behavior for an astromech. An unease settled over her as she contemplated what extremely limited information they had received. Standing from where she’d been meditating in her quarters she headed to the nav console upstairs. “Holiday, we’re meeting somebody on the fleet. Change course.”   
  
It was probably against regulations to let a sentient AI run the ship, but the practical advantages had proven huge so far. A second later the ship jumped to hyperspace, and although the improvements Theran had made over the years made the change all but unnoticeable, Tal’shanri braced against the imaginary impact.   
  
The only other one who seemed to be able to tell the difference between sub-light travel and traveling through hyperspace with out looking at a window was Hallow Voice. He stalked towards the front of the ship silently. While to most people he had the bad habit of appearing places with an unnerving stealth like ability, Tal’shanri could always feel his presence in the force and turned to greet him.   
  
He simply brushed past her and stared out the front window with out speaking. The two stood in companionable silence until with little more than a whisper the ship had jumped back into normal space, their request for docking codes processed faster than even the best droids could have managed.    
  
“Sky Hunter,” he seemed momentarily unsure of how to communicate what he was trying to say, and placed a clawed hand on her shoulder. “Many voices shout. One whispers. You heed the whisperer against the roaring of wisdom. The whisperer becomes the ocean and you drown in a sea of gold. You are reborn as Bright Storm.”   
  
“The Seer saw this and failed to speak so I must.” That much at least was clear, Gaden-Ko had requested to return to Voss on extremely short notice, troubled, he said by a vision of great suffering that needed the wisdom of three interpreters.    
  
Hallow Voice let go of her shoulder and turned to go, “The Whisperer knows who you are Sky Hunter. Even now.”    
  
Hallow Voice’s predictions were if anything more retrospectively accurate then Gaden-Ko’s visions. The problem was figuring out what they meant beforehand. Turning the name over it her mind Tal’shanri resolved to meditate on the matter when she next had time.   
  
“Holiday, tell the crew they have three hours shore leave on the fleet. Actually, wait, tell Theran he has two and a half so he gets back on time.”    
  
“Maybe I’ll just keep him here on the ship all to myself instead.” Holiday flickered to life for a brief moment, with one of her giggles that made otherwise threatening statements seem harmless. “Do I have to tell him we’ve landed master Jedi?”    
  
“No. You and he can—“ Holiday vanished again, not even waiting for Tal’shanri to finish the statement. It was disconcerting to talk to the AI sometimes, not being able to sense any emotions at all from her; it was hard to judge for sure just what her intentions actually were.   
  
Thankfully they had never seemed to include any desire to steal the ship.    
  
“Nadia, stay with Felix.” She could feel Felix groan internally at the thought of having to keep watch over Nadia; who although she almost always meant well had the habit of asking too many questions to the wrong people. Felix didn’t outwardly complain and instead put a hand protectively on Nadia’s shoulder.   
  
Nadia wasn’t exactly a child any more, but an unsupervised Padawan of any age made quite the target. She could have asked Qyzen to chaperone, but the Trandosian was just as likely as Nadia to cause some sort of incident. Hopefully everybody could manage to stay out of trouble for three hours...    
  
“Zenith, no smuggling!” His attempt to leave with out being seen foiled he made a non-committal sound in reply before he headed off somewhere with Qyzen close on his heels. It was pointless to try and list off for Zenith all the things he wasn’t allowed to do on shore leave, and Tal’shanri suppressed the urge to roll her eyes in frustration.    
  
Retiring to Tython to join the Jedi Council in a life of meditation and debate sounded better every day. Maybe after this one last mission she’d broach the subject with Satele. But first, Commander Darock.    



	2. "We’re just after one thing: The Dark Council Databanks."

There were two people in the briefing room when Tal’shanri arrived; and both turned to look at her as she entered. The Colonel simply glanced back over to the holotable after a quick visual confirmed who she was, tapping on the screen to pull up a battleplan while the other man spoke. “Theron Shan, SiS.”

Tal'shanri nodded politely at the introduction. “Your droid called this a priority Alpha mission; if that’s not true, there’s other places I’m needed more.”

The Colonel smiled, although there was a coldness in his eyes and she could sense a hidden agenda behind whatever he was about to reveal. “We’re about to hit the Sith Academy on Korriban.”

For a second Tal’shanri stared at him in disbelief. “Korriban is one of the most heavily secured planets in the galaxy, and the Sith Academy is a fortress. The Imperial Fleet will be there in—“

“Barsen’thor,” Theron interrupted with a gesture towards the datapad on the table, “We’re not planning a drawn out siege; this is solely a smash and grab operation. The Imperial Fleet is at least six hours out, and we’ll be there and gone in three. We’re just after one thing: The Dark Council Databanks.”

The Colonel handed her the datapad, which contained a full rundown of the attack time table, detailed plans, a secondary objectives list for—“Jensyn isn’t the right secondary commander for this mission.” Theron’s eyes flicked to the Colonel as Tal'shanri spoke and it was obvious that Theron hadn’t been briefed on there being a secondary Jedi team. “He takes too many risks. He lost half a unit his last mission chasing what turned out to be a child with a toy lightsaber.”

“You’ll need backup and there’s nobody else we can reach in time,” there was an edge to Darock’s voice that Theron didn’t seem to like either. “I’m sorry Barsen’thor. I’ll make note of your aversion to working with Commander Jensyn, it won’t happen again; but this mission has to go, Now.”

Theron shook his head subtly, having moved to stand somewhere outside of the view of both the droid and Darock. ‘i’ll stay commed in the whole time and keep Jensyn busy if I can.’ his lips barely moved at all; but Tal’shanri picked up on Theron’s comment, and his worry. More than that she could sense that Darock intended to move forward with the attack no matter what she said.

“I would be remiss in my duties as Barsen’thor if I declined – just keep Jensyn in check.”

Darock smiled grimly. “We’ll have you head out immediately.”

“Theron, if you would?” Darock’s expression twitched in annoyance at her request, “I only need to give him the entrance code to my ship; unless, of course, you plan on me bringing along—“

“Fine, fine. We don’t need your _personal army_ along for the ride.”

“Two minutes,” she offered in appeasement, even still the Colonel looked almost ready to set a timer about it all and paced the floor restlessly.

“Look, I didn’t know about Jensyn. I don’t like the guy. He’s—“ She held up her hand and Theron stopped his rapid fire explanation.

“Fine out the truth while I’m gone; my crew can help.”

“I don’t think Voss Visions—“

“Gaden-Ko returned to Voss. I meant Zenith and Tharan. They’re,” she paused trying to find the right word. “They’ll help on my orders; so will the others. Also, if you could leave Holiday out of any reports.”

“Holiday?”

“You’ll see. Look, any longer and the Colonel will start to doubt my story. Now, here’s the access codes." She turned to go, before pausing just long enough to add. "May the Force be with you Theron.”

“May the force be with you too Barsen’thor, you’ll need it.”

 


	3. "You’re going to bore me to death with your pacifist platitudes”

Even having read through the datapad a dozen times, it was still hard to believe that the long shot plan to attack Korriban was actually going to work; the details were all there, and everything checked out, even the secondary objective list – it was all there and in order. But maybe that was the issue, it all felt too well planned out. The military was _never_ this detailed about anything. So far everything had gone almost perfectly according to plan. Although, their landing shuttle had had to divert to a secondary landing pad slightly farther away from the Academy then planned.

There were three other Jedi along to assist. Two of them looked little older then Padawans, and the third had been studiously avoiding making eye contact the whole flight. Theron’s voice crackled over their shared comm link, “Sorry about the diversion. There’s a cryo trooper who has taken up a defensive position and is sieging the forward landing pad. If you could flush him out, we’d be able to land reinforcements for you.”

“Will do Theron, keep this channel open.” Tal’shanri killed the audio on their end and stood up despite the jostling of the shuttle. “We’ll jump, no need to make a full landing; their AA guns are starting to come back online and making sure you can get back to safe distance is more important than our comfort,” Tal’shanri shouted to the pilot. The three Jedi formed up behind her, and all four made the force leap to the ground, waving at the shuttle which pulled a hotshot bank, and swooped low to the ground as it returned to rejoin the larger strike force.

The heat of multiple suns didn’t take long to sink it, and Tal’shanri had to brace against just how hot Korriban actually was. There were sounds of fighting off in the distance, but the advanced strike team seemed to have done their job well and corralled any defenders into holding The Academy itself. “Stay low and quiet. We’re not here to fight every patrol that we come across.”

They moved quickly, skirting left along a wall to avoid a large patrol of droids lead by a haggard looking Sith Lord in a skull mask; and then ducked low through scrub brush to avoid a Klor’slug mound. The telltale flashes of blue and white were what gave away the cryo Trooper’s position from far enough out that scouting with Macrobinoculars proved easy enough. The siege position was protected on three sides by the remains of a ruined structure, with two pairs of droids guarding the forward approach.

It was probably less than wise to split the team up, but her instinct to avoid putting others in danger she could handle herself kicked in. “I’ll handle the cryo Trooper, you three take out the droids.” The others nodded and moved to follow her orders. Using The Force as a shroud of invisibility almost always impressed Padawans the first time they actually saw a Master completely disappear and the three seemed startled as she vanished without a trace. It bothered her slightly how young they seemed, but surely Darok hadn’t sent actual Padawans on such a dangerous mission.

Running ahead, she slipped easily past the droids, and waited in position behind the cryo Trooper for the rest of her team to pull the droids away. He paced restlessly, the full body armor glowing a slight blue color from the coolant running through it. There was an open crate of cryo rockets at his feet, and he kept glancing up at the sky as if waiting for more shuttles to try and land; but for the moment neither side was engaging in overhead dogfights.

The older boy took down one of the droids with an impressive saber throw, the other three droids drawing their weapons to return fire – as the cryo trooper moved to activate his wrist rockets. Tal’shanri waited long enough for him to fully arm them and even start to aim before she let go of the Force Shroud and slashed at the coolant lines on the back of his armor. The support droids were now fully engaged and out of range to assist the cryo trooper, and she could hear him swear as the loss of hydraulic pressure in the suit sent him sprawling sideways.

He turned to fire at her again, but she had already moved out of the way, landing a second slash against his armor, this time triggering several alarms in his helmet. He drew a blaster and got off a few easily deflected rounds while trying to scramble back to his feet. She waited to strike again until he was standing unsteadily again; cutting down a defenseless opponent wasn't the Jedi way.

“Lay down your weapons and you may leave, unharmed.”

He shook his head, and she could hear him laughing through the helmet, even over this klaxon of alarms. Reaching up he pulled his helmet off and tossed it towards her, his orange eyes meeting her own. “Never thought I’d see the day when I had to face down a Jedi Blood Traitor." He dipped his head in a mock bow before introducing himself. "I'm Commander Melkans.”

There was a long pause where she stared at him in disbelief. Another Chiss on Korriban? He seemed to mistake the source of her surprise and quickly added, “Oh, _I see_ , you're waiting for even more formalities, perhaps you want to compare the status of our respective Houses? Well then, I'm properly Commander Rithar’malkansha’iru. And you are?”

“Tal’shanri. Barsen’thor of the Jedi Order.”

“I meant your real name.”

“That is my real name.”

“So you are a blood traitor then? Forgotten your own name,” he made a tisking sound and gave her a pitting look. “The Alliance with The Empire was the best thing The Ascendency ever did, it’s such a shame that small minded traitors like you can never understand the Eternal Glory promised to us.”

“Lay down your weapons and you may leave, unharmed.”

“Ah, so, the rumors about the Jedi are true. You’re going to bore me to death with your pacifist platitudes,” he laughed again, extending a heavily armored hand to reveal a primed thermal detonator dead man’s switch. “Too bad we’ll both die of them.”

The energy from the explosion slammed into her force shield, pushing her back a solid six feet as the energy was forced sideways against it, vaporizing everything in a cone shape from where he had been standing. There was no way the Imperials could have missed an explosion of that size.

“Did you just survive a Thermal Detonator?” Both Theron and one of her team asked the same question at the same time. All three were still alive, although, the older boy was limping and looks considerably worse for wear.

“Yes, it was a dead man’s switch. I should have seen it and didn’t.”

“Sith comm chatter is that they’ve ordered the academy beast pit master to take his creatures and hold the last choke point before you get to the Academy itself,” there was something about Theron’s voice that was off. Something was definitely wrong on his end. “Barsen’thor, be careful; and make sure you secure your secondary objectives.”

She caught on immediately that Theron's clue had to be something about the secondary objectives. “Understood Theron.”

“Can you three hold this position?” Completing the mission would be much harder alone, but if four droids had proved a problem… She wouldn’t be responsible for risking their lives against the Sith defending the Academy.

“We’ll try Barsen’thor,” the youngest in the group spoke up, and her voice was little more the mouse-y squeak of a frightened child. “Sorry we weren’t more help. Commander Jensyn—“

“Wait, are you Jensyn’s /Padawan/?” It was hard to keep the complete disbelief out of her voice as she asked the question.

“Err, yes Barsen’thor? We are all. Commander Jensyn’s been training a big group of us together. We just thought it was a new program The Order wanted to try out, you know, help more Padawans learn faster—“

“Commander Jensyn _never_ should have put you three at risk like this. He and I will be having a very long talk after this is all over.”

“He, err, said the Jedi Council had approved his methods. We just assumed you knew.” It wasn’t impossible that the rest of the council could have approved of a training program. The whole council didn’t meet over every small issue after all, but this was clearly wrong.

“Jensyn may have been misinformed about a few things regarding training Padawans; I intend to clear this whole misunderstanding up with him later.”

The three Padawans swapped nervous looks, like they had been caught red handed. But it was not their fault, they weren’t in the wrong for Jensyn’s odd behavior. Her face furrowed and she considered calling for a full evac and confronting Jensyn sooner rather then later. How many other Padawans were at risk? “Even if I disagree with Jensyn’s methods, I trust that he wouldn’t have sent you unless he believed your abilities adequate. I’m still trusting you to hold this position.”

Not that she had much choice. But, the three nodded soberly and fanned out around the cleared landing site, taking up defensive positions. Her comm link buzzed with Theron on the other end. “I heard that all. I also made it look to Darock and Jensyn that your comm link was knocked out by the explosion. We can’t talk long. But, I’ll contact Satele about the Padawans. I /know/ she wouldn’t have approved that. As to the matter you asked me too look into, Zenith’s digging on Darock has been, troubling to say the least. This is big Tal’shanri. Conspiracy big.”

“Copy Theron, for now, I’ll keep going. Alone I might be able to check on what some of the secondary objectives actually are before Jensyn gets there. We’ll solve this. You have my word as a Jedi.”

“The whole galaxy might be in trouble if we don't act fast here.”


	4. Anybody willing to bet against a Jedi was no friend.

Using the force to cloak herself made approaching the academy much easier then when she had been trying to sneak along walls; and Tal'shanri was able to make it all the way to the choke point without encountering another ambush. Theron’s Intel on the beast pit master was right, and for a distance she scanned the site with her macrobinoculars: the identification feature flagging the creatures as Tukattas. Even while cloaked they could smell her, and one of the four at the Sith Lord's feet had locked eyes with her as soon as she had gotten within even long distance scanning range. They were guarding an elevator, and even if she could have backtracked, Tal’shanri didn’t have the first idea where to find a way up the steep cliff.

Five on one wasn't the worst situation she had faced and lived; but there wasn’t time to contemplate and plan how best to take a tactical approach. Tal’shanri knew the best bet was to let the Sith Lord’s arrogance give her a chance to take down the beasts before fighting him in single combat. Even if the Sith realized too late that his pets were no match for her, anything to avoid getting overwhelmed would make that much difference.

She walked back around the corner, decloaked, and then stepped confidently into full view of the Sith Lord. “Restrain your beasts, lay down your weapons, and you’ll be allowed to live.”

The Sith Lord smiled at her from a distance, an icy dangerous smile that suggested he knew much more than he was letting on. “I admire you for facing me head on Barsen’thor, but I can assure you, your journey ends here. I’m not some freshly minted Sith Lord that knows nothing of our enemy! I know who you are, and I know how you fight. You won’t get past me.”

He kept the Tukattas close, but carefully spaced out enough to avoid them all being caught in a lightsaber whirl. They snarled and paced, but made no move to meet her away from their master. There was one vulnerability the Sith seemed to have neglected though, being bottlenecked in a narrow canyon. There was nowhere to retreat to against a rockslide. She calmly took a few steps forward, trying one last time to lure the Tukattas away with no success. She drew her lightsaber, he drew his, she raised her hand in preparation for using the force, and he started to conjure lightning in his hands. Moves and counter moves.

He unleashed a lightning blast that came close enough that Tal’shanri could smell the ozone in the same moment as she pulled the cliff down on him and the beasts. He barely had time to turn towards the sound of the cliff coming apart before several tons of rock crashed down, burying the canyon floor in boulders the size of speeders. It was a brutal way to win a fight.

Tal’shanri stopped to listen and make sure the rocks had completely crushed the Sith before moving on, leaving him alive but injured would have been needlessly cruel. As she listened, she could hear that one of the Tukattas seemed only partially crushed, and was making a yelping sound as if to attract attention. It was the same one that had been watching her through her cloak, and for a moment she considered if killing it might be the more humane thing to do. Tukattas were Sith beasts, and known to be smart enough to lure tomb robbers into ambushes. Letting something fundamental evil live was hardly a mercy.

Instead, as she drew closer, saber in hand fully intending to kill the creature, it started to cower instead of snarl, and made plaintive whimpering sounds. She could see now the scars all along the creature’s neck, and the burns on its hide. Up close it was a pitifully skinny and abused creature and it seemed to be trying to make itself as small as possible the closer she got. It locked gazes with her again, golden eyes expressive in a way that she hadn’t been expecting. The beast clearly understood what was going on, and although it couldn’t speak, was trying to communicate with her.

Tal'shanri placed her hand on the Tukatta's snout and let The Force flow out of her, healing the worst of its injuries, and then force lifting the rock off its back legs. It would have been wrong to kill the beast when it was vulnerable and attempting to make itself as non-threatening as possible. Healing any creature left them in a brief daze, and Tal’shanri didn’t stick around. It had been a moment of compassion, but, there was still a long way to go to reach the Sith Academy and she didn’t have time to waste.

She recloaked and jumped on the elevator, watching as the Tukatta shook itself once, twice, and then fixed her with a look of begrudging understanding. It could see through her cloak, and was certainly capable of leaping at her and forcing her to fight on the tiny elevator platform – but with a whine that sounded surprisingly like a human sigh, it turned and sprinted off in the opposite direction as the elevator rose slowly towards the plateau where the Academy was located.

As the elevator rose Tal’shanri tried to comm Theron with no luck. The signal had been intermittent at best – which was strange given that while she had been with the Padawans the signal had come through crisp and clear. It was probably for the best the signal ended up jammed because she heard the sound of a droid coming online with a metallic purr just in time to drop flat as three heat seeking missiles sailed within an inch of her head. She rolled off the elevator as it drew level with the plateau, and scrambled out of the way in a panic as the droid stomped towards her, lasers firing at where she had been a second earlier.

“DETECTING. DETECTING.” Of course the Sith had a droid that could see through force cloaks. Great.  


Whatever technology it used to do so did seem to have some lag time while it triangulated and she didn’t immediately decloak; instead searching for any way around the droid. With a shriek of static that Tal’shanri was surprised didn’t give her position away, Theron’s voice came through in a hail of static. “There’s a force shield ahead. The droid is broadcasting a matching signal. You’re going to have to hack into the control systems on the droid to change the signal to all clear – don’t worry about the technobabble I can walk you through it. The downside is, you can’t completely scrap the droid in the process of subduing it. We still need it functional.”

“Could you have warned me before it about flattened me with heat seeking missiles?”

“It wasn’t broadcasting until just now; also it’s good to have your commlink back online. I was getting worried.”

Instructions to not destroy the droid in mind, she decloaked darted forward and slashed at the joints connecting its body to its leg, taking out its left leg before it could recalibrate to close range defensive fire. It sustained the barrage long enough to actively push her back, and then reloaded with a single swift motion, forcing her into a defensive crouch. She could hear it priming missiles while it kept her pinned down with wide coverage suppressing fire. The second it stopped its laser barrage to switch to missiles she was up and running; a good thing to as homing missiles rained down and blasted craters into the dust. One nearly managed to knock her down and she could feel the heat on the back of her legs from the explosion.

A full reload phase followed, and she got in a few more hits against its other leg before it ratcheted back up to a full auto firing pattern. The droid didn’t seem to have any particularly advanced programming at least, relying on a predictable rotation of attacks. Its sheer durability and armament had probably been enough before now.

 Tal’shanri’s attacks had managed to knock out its other leg, and as it switched to suppressing fire the movement caused both legs to fail and the droid to crumple in on itself. But being immobilized didn’t stop the droid. Instead, alarms went off for critical damage and a flamethrower attachment began to warm up; the damaged droid spraying a cone of flame towards her that made getting close enough to get in any more lightsaber strikes impossible.

It also recalibrated its weapons to keep the suppressing fire and homing missiles up. But now even during its reloading phase she couldn’t get in close enough for a strike. The cliff top was largely barren and open, a winding path towards the Sith Academy off in the distance behind the force shield the only notable feature. There were no boulders to throw, no pillars to hide behind, no defensive help of any sort. Tal’shanri could tell she was over extending herself and burning energy using the force to keep just ahead of the homing missiles for so long. Yet she was still practically no closer to defeating the droid then at the start.

Eventually it had to run out of fuel for the flamethrower – although the tanks on its back were clearly designed for sustaining fire – and homing missiles. A droid might be able to keep up laser fire indefinitely, but there were practical restrains on just how long it could keep the combo of all four going. It was simply a matter of which of them wore down and made a mistake first, her or the droid.

And then, the droid simply stopped, as if somebody had thrown the off switch.

“That hack took some doing!” Theron's voice didn't come not through her comm link, but instead from the droid.

“Theron! Thank the stars—“

“You owe me twenty credits colonel. You said there was no way she could have survived what your men were seeing from the air; but there she is!”

Theron was clearly warning her about saying anything over an open channel, but more than that, it was a warning about Darock. Anybody willing to bet against a Jedi was no friend.

“You’re quite the survivor there Jedi! I’ll have to put in a recommendation that you get a medal for your service,” Darock’s tone was measured and Tal’shanri didn’t doubt the sincerity in his statement. Especially after that hack with the droid, she just trusted Theron more.


	5. "Legends of your skill in the Force have reached us even here."

“This last stretch is going to be the hard part Barsen’thor. There’s two groups of Sith Lords protecting two computer terminals that each contain half an access code; once you have the access code you’ll need to head to the Dark Council Chambers. Our sensor sweeps can’t detect what, or who, is in that final room,” Theron was still communicating using the droid, and kept pausing while speaking – something on his end was not just a distraction, but seemed to be a sign that he was dealing with a serious issue.

The next steps of the plan had been laid out on the datapad, which so far had seemed to contain accurate information even if the droid had not been listed as an obstacle. Exhausted as she was there was no time to rest and Tal’shanri recloaked and headed down the path, stopping as she rounded the corner and got her first view of The Sith Academy.

If buildings could radiate a sense of evil, the academy certainly did. As she looked at it Tal’shanri could feel her skin crawl as the dark side of the force seethed and whispered and sent goosebumps across her skin. There was no room for doubt that this was an evil, evil, place. It was also deserted. It seemed the guards either had retreated inside or fled.

The closer she got, the more the dark side seemed to resist her being there. It was a tangible feeling of hate and loathing, each step like trying to swim against a current. Inside the temple it only got worse. A deep malaise settled into her stomach, festering in her a gnawing paranoia about everything she had ever done. But, Tal’shanri knew she couldn’t stop moving, and followed the map from the datapad to where the first terminal had been marked.

Even inside the Academy there were fewer guards than she had been expecting. The terminal was guarded not by an army, but just two Apprentices and a Sith Lord. They were all standing close enough together to be easy targets, and before the Sith Lord could draw his lightsaber she had decloaked, stunned the one apprentice with a force mesmerize; and knocked the other unconscious with a blow to the base of the skull with the shaft of her lightsaber.

“Lay down your lightsaber, and you will not be harmed.”

“If I thought you could honor that agreement, I might take you up on it,” The Sith Lord drew his saber although he looked wary of actually fighting her one on one. “But you can’t protect even your own three Padawans.” The taunt in his statement was obvious, and he laughed at the surprise that flicked across her face. She had left the Padawans safely at a site that was supposedly being reinforced, how had he even known about them? “Although last time I saw there were only two of them left alive.”

“Your taunts won’t work on me.”

“Oh? I thought the Barsen’thor of The Order might break with the proud Jedi tradition of caring more about your stupid Jedi Code then about saving lives. Such a shame, but do continue to preach to me about pacifism Jedi. Just remember that the longer you stay here, the worse off your friends grow.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“Nor I you. Legends of your skill in the Force have reached us even here you know. I know I can’t win against you, not even if I were to cheat,” he seemed resigned to his fate, but more than that she could sense a fixed purpose in him, beyond simply serving the Dark Side. He was projecting a belief in a Transcendence of some sort – something she had never encountered in a Sith before. “But I die today knowing that soon enough it will soon be your bones on the pyre Jedi. The attack on the Academy is only the beginning.”

He flourished his saber and charged forward, and they traded a series of lightsaber hits before he made a sloppy dodge to the left and her saber struck true against his neck. The computer terminal behind him wasn’t even encrypted, and it only took a minute of searching its databanks before she found the unlock doors command. One down, one more to go.

The Academy seemed like it had been designed to be full of blind corridors perfect for ambushes, and Tal’shanri had to backtrack several times. Even though she had yet to see so much as a single roaming Sith, every twist and turn; every blind passage way tightened the knot of paranoia she felt about the mission. The sooner she was off Korriban, the better.

 


	6. “Kill me if you want Jedi. You don’t understand what I’ve done here today!"

After her fourth time passing what Tal’shanri was sure was the same hideous painting of Tulak Hord she heard voices coming from a side corridor. She couldn’t quite make out the words, but the voice was unmistakably the youngest of Jensyn’s Padawans. Before she could creep close enough to properly listen in the voice stopped and silence fell before the sound of force lightning and screaming rang out. The whole situation seemed to have TRAP written all over it, but there didn’t seem to be any other way to save Jensyn's Padawans other then to spring it.

Knowing that a confrontation was inevitable Tal’shanri dropped her force cloak and walked through the archway with her saber drawn. A good thing too as a blast of lighting that seemed to come from the door frame itself sizzled harmless against her blade. Lethal anti-intruder technology like that was uncommon – even among the Sith Empire. (A dead spy wasn’t much use for interrogation after all.) But one look around the room explained the trap -- there were two dozen empty prisoner holding pens, and a wall covered in torture droids. Standing in the middle of the room was Inquisitor Arzanon, his saber held to the neck of the last remaining Padawan, the body of the young girl on the floor in front of him.

Arzanon held a hand crackling with lighting up to the young man’s head, bringing it close enough to singe the Padawan’s hair and grinned at the terrified whimpers the Padawan was making. “Surrender Jedi, or he dies.”

“Let him go first, and you have my word I’ll lay down my weapon.”

Arzanon considered the offer, before, to Tal’shanri’s total shock, he released the boy from his grip and lowered his saber, switching to using a force choke to keep the Padawan immobilized. “There, a gesture of good will for you Jedi. Now, put your weapon on the ground and kick it towards me and I’ll release the boy from the hold.”

There wasn’t a Sith in the galaxy that would agree to something like this so easily, and it all seemed to confirm that there had some sort of deal made between the Padawans and Arzanon before she arrived. Even though she knew it was a trap, Tal'shanri gently lowered her saber to the ground, and kicked the weapon over towards Arzanon who picked it up and and clipped it to his belt before he released the force hold on the boy.

The newly freed Padawan looked between the two before he backed away from both of them while Arzanon watched the boy’s reaction with a growing look of disgust on his face, “We had a deal! The Sith don’t take cowards, you want to join us, you’ll have to prove yourself first.”

“Padawan, please forget whatever deal you may have made. The Dark Side is not the way. You know this.”

“There is no way but the Dark Side of the Force!”

“You’re both wrong. The Force is neither light, nor dark.” Both Arzanon and Tal’shanri recoiled slightly at that statement, and the Padawan shook his head nervously. “I won’t join either of you, there’s another—”

“Then you can die!” Arzanon interrupted and sent a wave of lightning towards the Padawan, who didn’t have time to react in defense before he was reduced to black smear on the wall. With Arzanon’s attention elsewhere in that brief moment, Tal’shanri reached out with the force for the Padawan’s lightsaber, summoning it from where she had spotted it on a table. The single green blade felt strange in her hands – her own lightsaber a double-bladed saberstaff – but after a test swing, she retooled her grip for the single blade and force leapt at Arzanon.

There was only one good way to fight an inquisitor, and that was up close. At range, dodging his lightning bolts would exhaust her strength rapidly, and with only the single blade Tal’shanri didn’t feel confident enough to repulse a concentrated blast. Even up-close, however, the advantage was till Arzanon’s as he countered her initial strike with his saber easily. With a hiss and several words in a language that was both ancient and evil, dark black force energy coated his gloved hand.

He wasted no time, and the force energy now running along his fist came within inches of clipping her with a punch aimed at her ribs. From the sheer ferocity of the attack Tal'shanri tell that his strength and connection to the Dark Side was being enhanced somehow. No normal Sith Lord would have been such a worthy foe. 

With only one lightsaber it was impossible to counter both attack styles, and Arzanon pressed the advantage, locking sabers with her on a down swing while he reached for her throat with his gloved hand. He connected this time, the force energy from his gauntlet leaving a distinctive black slash on her neck and throat as it dissipating from his glove and flowed into her. His lips curled in triumph at the hit even though she managed to counter it well enough to stay standing. It was possible to absorb the energy from force attacks, although the effort left Tal’shanri feeling as if she had just run several miles at top speed, and her whole body ached from the effort.

Arzanon waited a moment, eyes fixed on the slash on her neck, before pressing his attack again, sending a force wave at her legs while he struck high with his saber. She was forced backwards by the double assault, although she rolled back into close range before he could start channeling a more powerful lightning strike. He paused in his attack just long enough to wave his hand towards the torture droids which activated and sped to flank her.

Retreating from the droids forced her far enough back that with a Sith-y cackle he switched from using both saber and lightning to just lightning. His raw power channeled into a single bolt was enough to send her sprawling across the floor even with her saber up and absorbing the brunt of the shockwave. The droids swooped down towards her and there was a moment where she contemplated the idea that she might actually die on this mission. Her mind cleared at the thought, her training about what to do in a situation like this flooded back, and she faded from sight under a force shroud.  

The droids couldn’t see through her force cloak, and simply hovered in place confused about where their target had gone. Arzanon might not have been able to see her, but that didn’t stop his attacks, and she only just managed to roll to the left as he blasted a hole in the floor where she had been a second before. He narrowed his eyes, and resorted to flinging lightning around the room, hoping for a lucky strike.

He paused to activate more droids – using the technique of ricocheting lightning between enough droids would find her no matter where in the room she was – and Tal’shanri leapt at him and slashed at his left arm; lightsaber cutting though flesh at the shoulder with a perfect cleaving strike. He dropped his saber in shock at the loss of his arm, and slumped to the floor slowly. It was not a lethal wound, but the fight seemed to have gone out of him. “Kill me if you want Jedi. You don’t understand what I’ve done here today, and by the time you do, it will already be too late to stop it. I die having the satisfaction of knowing that you'll suffer a fate worse then death." 

"You're not the first Sith to say that to me," she waved her hand and used force mesmerize letting him collapse the rest of the way to the ground. Tal'shanri checked his pulse, still alive, before she retrieved her lightsaber from his belt. Having her own saber back filled her with a deep sense of relief; over the years it had become an extension of her body and will, fighting with out it had felt utterly off-balance. 

Lacking new commands, the activated torture droids spun in place, and looked like they might be priming some sort of self-destruct but a quick blast of force energy turned them to scrap before they could detonate. With the room safe for the moment, she reached up and checked the wound on her neck. Even from the lightest of touches she could tell it was intimately connected to the dark side, but, it didn’t seem to pose any immediate danger.

Accessing the second computer proved just as easy as the first, and a second green light came on next to the door unlock. There was still no sound from her comm line, not even a static hiss; hopefully Theron and her team were ok, but she couldn’t worry about that. The dark council chambers awaited her.


	7. “What could a Sith consider bigger than The Empire?”

The hallway behind the locked doors was almost comically grand seeming. There was plush carpeting, and rows of tapestries hung along the walls (a mix of Sith Lords dressed in regal battle armor, torture scenes, and what Tal'shanri could only assume were representations of creatures made from Sith Alchemy). Walking down the hallway it was hard to shake the feeling that the tapestries were watching her. As she pushed against the door at the end of the hallway, three force ghosts pushed back against her. They were all three dressed in full battle armor, masks covering their faces, and two of the three drew ghostly lightsabers brandishing them at her.

There were no weapons that worked against force ghosts. They could be contained, and some Sith had been rumored to have the ability to bind force ghosts as slaves, but there was no killing a ghost a second time. The third force ghost said something to the others, and they lowered their sabers; bowing to her and allowing her to pass through the door. They followed her at a distance, all three whispering in low voices before coming to a stop as they entered the main council chambers.

Darth Soverus stood on a raised dais, orange eyes burning with hate as he stared down at her. “Only the greatest of all Sith are permitted to set foot in these chambers. You profane our entire history by your presence alone!”  He jumped down, drawing his orange lightsaber as he paced intensely. “My friends tell me you killed Cestus and crippled Arzanon.” He gestured at the ghosts, and Tal’shanri couldn’t help but wonder how long they might have been following her. “They were both expendable defenders of course.” His eyes lingered on the wound on her neck, the ghosts whispering to him in their strange language again as if explaining something, and his face twisted into a fanged smile. “Although they also tell me at least one of them wasn’t completely useless.”

Soverus made a small hand gesture and the pain that shot through her neck was enough to bring her to her knees. She clawed at the mark on her neck with a panicked scrambling grip, vision going black around the edges. “Ah! Arzanon will be rewarded for this,” he flicked his hand to the left and tossed her against a pillar with a force throw that would have been lethal to a human. “Did Arzanon tell you what was coming?” Soverus stalked towards her, raising a hand to hold her in a force choke; only to have Tal’shanri counter with a lash of force energy.

Standing somewhat shakily, she drew her lightsaber with her right hand, keeping her left pressed to her neck; fingers glowing with healing energy. Soverus laughed and shook his head, “No, it doesn’t look like he did. I think I’ll keep you alive. The rest of the Dark Council will want to meet you.”

It was a huge drain of energy to try and use the force to suppress the pain enough to stay standing, especially given how exhausted she was already from so many back to back fights. The two hour window of prime opportunity had passed, she was sure of it -- and without Theron on the comm link there was really no way of knowing if help was coming or not.

Having decided not to kill her outright, Soverus moved fast to subdue her, and struck with a flurry of blows from different angles testing her defenses. Tal’shanri could tell instantly that had he been going for the kill she would have been dead. As the force ghosts circled and jeered at her feeble efforts to defend herself it grew more and more obvious that Soverus was toying with her, simply waiting for her to give up. 

His game was interrupted by the sound of assault cannon fire against the doors of the council chamber. He leapt back to the center of the room, dismissing the force ghosts to stop the Republic reinforcements, as he channeled some sort of dark side ability that Tal’shanri had never seen before. Risky as it was she used a saber toss to knock him just off balance enough to ruin his concentration.

 He stared at her from across the room eyes burning not with hate but with a sense of amusement that was, if anything, more terrifying. She barely had time to grab her lightsaber before he had sent a force wave her direction. The Sith using a Jedi trick caught her off guard and the wave slammed into her, tossing her twenty feet through the air and into the wall with a thud. A quick force shield absorbed the brunt of the impact, but creating a force shield took two hands, and she still ended up stunned.

Stunning her seemed to have been his plan all along, and she fell a solid twelve feet to the ground with a thud; probably breaking at least two ribs.  Soverus walked towards her unhurriedly, seemingly unconcerned about the army at the doors. “I’m impressed Barsen’thor,” he knelt down next to her, voice a low silky purr. “It really is a shame we didn’t get to you first, you could have done so much for our cause.”

“I.d sooner die then serve The Empire.”

Soverus didn’t react how she had expected, ignoring the taunt and scooping her up onto his shoulder with a low dangerous laugh. “There was a time that I would have killed you for that statement,” he glanced towards the door again, this time his brow furrowed at the sound of serious fighting. “But, this is bigger than The Empire.”

“What could a Sith consider bigger than The Empire?”

“Prophesy.”

“What do you mean—“

But at that moment Commander Jensyn and his men burst through the door, Soverus’s eyes widening in shock at the sight of the other Jedi.


	8. “Their deaths are my fault."

“You,” Jensyn’s face was unreadable as he uttered the single word and materialized a force barricade behind him that kept his team from advancing into the room. Using the force like that was something few Jedi learned how to do – it was one thing to use the force as a personal shield against attacks, it was a completely different thing to use it offensively like that. There were however, Sith traps that employed Force Barriers, and the tombs of famous Sith Lords were littered with the skeletons of apprentices who had learned the hard way about just how impenetrable a force wall could be.

“I would threaten the Barsen'thor's life,” Soverus had lost some of his arrogant bluster, but not all of it; and he drew his lightsaber with a dramatic flourish. “But your reputation from Corellia precedes you Commander. I’d have to actually kill her to get your attention, and I quite like my prize. The bounty the Chiss Ascendency has for bringing her in alive is worth more than any brief satisfaction I’d get from provoking you.”

Tal’shanri waited for Jensyn to reply to the taunt, but the Commander didn’t; instead he just took in the situation with much more of a tactical eye then she had ever seen him apply to anything. He seemed to be waiting for something, eyes lingering on a specific section of wall. The third time Jensyn’s gaze passed the same spot Soverus caught on and shook his head with a laugh. “Your Padawans are all dead Jensyn.”

“Is that true Tal'shanri?”

Soverus gave Jensyn a look of utter disdain, “Do you really think I would be carrying the Barsen’thor of the Jedi Order around like a sack of joba fruits if I didn’t have her completely under a force mesmerize?”

“Let her answer.”

“Don’t presume to give me orders!”

“Arrogant Sith! I want to hear it from her!”

Soverus snarled at the insult, and took several threatening steps towards Commander Jensyn. This time Jensyn drew his own saber in return and the two men stared at each other with equal hatred. Soverus lowered his weapon first, a tactical error that Tal’shanri couldn’t believe to be real until a split second later when Jensyn’s light saber was buried in the Sith’s chest. “I never should have—“

The Force Mesmerize dropped as Soverus fell to the ground. He wasn’t dead, Jensyn’s saber toss was just a hair too low to have gone straight through the Sith’s heart, and Tal’shanri immediately put a hand to the wound, silver sparks of force energy preserving his life for a few precious moments. “Never should have what?”

Soverus’s eyes met hers and for a second she could see real fear in them, not of her, but of something else. Something dark, and masked. “Never should have doubted the prophesy, it was—“

Jensyn’s saber cut true this time, and struck a decapitating blow clean through the Soverus’s neck. “Can’t take any chances with Sith Lords – now where are my Padawans?”

The brutality of the decapitation surprised her, and for a second Tal’shanri simply stared with something close to shock at Jensyn. There had been rumors about Corellia, rumors that Jensyn had tried to join the somewhat mystical Sixth Line after the battle. More than one master had muttered about how Jensyn had become too brutal in the last days of the war, and that he was dangerous, but seeing it first hand was still a momentary shock.

“Dead.”

Jensyn closed his eyes for a brief second at the news, “I had hoped he was lying and that they had simply been delayed in executing the plan.”

“The plan I wasn’t informed about.”

Jensyn picked up his saber, and gave her a cold look. “You were told precisely what you needed to know to complete the mission.”

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, one that Tal’shanri normally would have taken at face value. Jensyn had just saved her life after all, and he was a Jedi. She didn’t have more than a gut feeling to go on about him being involved somehow, and it wasn’t the Jedi way to jump to conclusions – but.

But.

She shook her head twice, and took a slow breath, resisting the urge to give into Dark Side induced paranoia. “I’m sorry Jensyn.” There were plenty of justifications she could have offered, not to mention the fact that he shouldn’t have sent them in the first place, but she simply apologized. “Their deaths are my fault. I shouldn’t have let them out of my sight.”

“And?”

 “I won’t mention this incident if you don’t.”

That was what Jensyn seemed to have been looking for and he dropped the force barricade, and soldiers rushed into the room guns drawn as he did so. “The Dark Lord is dead! The barricade must have been his doing, and fallen once he was defeated.” Jensyn stepped between his men and the body, half blocking it from their view. There wasn’t a man in the Republic military that would have believed for a second that the Barsen’thor had decapitated a Sith Lord. That was a lie too far.

“We’re already behind schedule. We need to head into the temple and secure our secondary objectives as quickly as possible. Move out men!”

His plan almost worked, but a Zabrak lieutenant lingered behind even as the other men followed Jensyn. “The barricade, it was Jenysn wasn’t it?”

Tal’shanri kept a neutral expression on her face as she answered, “Why would you think that?”

“I’ve seen him do it before. On Corellia. Said it was a Sith then too.”

“I was told—“

“The official reports were altered. What really happened was—“

All the soldiers in the room reached for their comm links at the same moment as an alarm echoed a dozen times in miniature. “Tython was attacked! We’re all being redeployed immediately.”

 


	9. "I had help from a very advanced AI who still crashed the ship."

Tal’shanri ended up on the same shuttle as the Zabrak lieutenant from before. In an attempt to avoid talking about Jensyn, he spent half the flight trying to walk a very nervous medic through applying Kolto to the slash on her neck. He seemed shaken by the whole chain of events, and it was only a firm request that he let her meditate that finally quieted him.

The wound on her neck still wasn’t healing right, and if anything it had gotten worse. There were black striations all down her arm now, and if she hadn’t objected (for modesty’s sake, to snickering from several of the soldiers) to having the medic check just how bad they actually were she was sure the lieutenant would have had a heart attack at how far whatever it was had spread.

The marks burned to the touch, and even though she was trained to block out pain, there was no completely blocking the whispers of the Dark Side that were growing more and more frequent. A few reports about the Sith attack had trickled in during their hasty redeployment, all of them repeating that nobody had been able to get past the blockade to even guess at a possible casualty count. The only good news seemed to that Grandmaster Satele and several others from the council had all been off world when Tython was attacked.

Theron had to be right about a conspiracy. No Sith force would have been able to take Tython had the Grandmaster been there.

Forced comm silence while in transit to Tython meant contacting Theron was out of the question, although she had briefly considered trying the emergency frequency Theran and Holiday had set up for her. Once they were on the ground and the soldiers had dispersed she resolved to send some sort of message.

 It was doubtful that Darock had bothered to tell Theron what had happened; and even more doubtful that Theron and the SiS would have approved a rapid redeployment like this. For something that had been billed as a joint mission, the SiS sure seemed to have been cut out of much of the loop.

The shuttle jerked back into normal space alarmingly close to Tython’s atmosphere and whomever was piloting the shuttle pulled off a string of improbably skilled stunt maneuvers to avoid the heavy AA fire from below. The shuttle still hit the ground hard, and skidded along for a hundred meters before finally coming to a stop with everybody in a pile on the floor. “Before anybody complains about my flying, I’d just like to point out that—“

A wave of relief washed over Tal’shanri at the sound of a familiar voice. Felix. He must have been waiting this whole time without revealing himself for a reason, although what that could be given the comm silence was beyond her. He paused his statement while unclipping himself from his chair and walking back into the crew cabin, only just managing to not laugh at the ridiculous pile of soldiers on the floor.

“—I had help from a very advanced AI who still crashed the ship. Nobody else in the entire fleet has gotten a ship through both the blockade the AA guns. We might be all Tython’s getting.”

Everybody sobered up at that. A single squad of soldiers and one injured Jedi against a literal invading army. Tal'shanri spoke up, a confidence she didn't entirely feel in her voice. “We’re all the /outside/ help Tython is getting. I know some well-armed locals who owe me a favor.”

“My team will see what we can do about taking down the AA guns while you gather your allies and hit the temple itself; we won’t be any use against Sith Lords, but we can certainly go toe to toe with imperial soldiers,” the lieutenant stood, and the rest of his team pulled themselves up off the floor to stand behind him; a gunnery sergeant offering her a hand up.

“Agreed. I’ll bring the pilot with me so he doesn’t slow your men down, and we can stay mobile and avoid having to hold this shuttle. May the Force be with you lieutenant.”

The lieutenant nodded, and the squad of soldiers followed him out, leaving Tal’shanri and Felix alone.

 


	10. "I’m not interested in becoming the slightly renamed star in a thousand holonovels about his mystical powers of seduction."

“We have to hit the temple, _now_.” Felix wasted no time as he raced to grab his gear from several hiding spots around the shuttle. “The last communication Zenith and I had, well, he hasn’t broken their code completely yet but one word keeps coming up that he’s sure is correct. Rakkata. We don’t know much more than that—“

He stopped, and shook his head at the sight of her arm then continued anyway. “—but as soon as we hit upon that word all hell broke loose. Theron managed to hack into the docking system and free the ship; but Nadia and I were still station side. We got jumped by a bunch of thugs in the middle of the market, they almost managed to kill us before security droids responded and we were able to get away. I stuck Nadia on the first freighter headed to Alderran, she’ll be safe there under the protection of House Teral for a while at least.”

One he had finished gearing up Felix headed to the front of the ship and activated the comm channel, tapping into the same emergency signal Tal’shanri had been thinking about using. “Thanks for the landing Holiday.” Her familiar giggle, distorted as it was across the poor connection, was a strange comfort. “We’re headed to the temple now. Once we leave the ship I don’t think we’ll be able to get even a boosted signal through. Any last words for us?”

There was a pause where Holiday flickered out, and then back. “Don’t die. We like you too much Jedi.” She looked briefly annoyed at something on her end, and then added, “The /other/ Theron says, ‘may the force be with you’.” With that she was gone and a warning light flashed on the console.

“Incoming heat seeking missile,” Felix explained. “They’ve tracked the signal.” The two only just managed to clear the blast radius before the missile crashed into the ship, leaving behind nothing more than a smoldering wreck. “I know you said you had allies, but we don’t have time for diplomacy. The Sith have already held the temple long enough to have cracked the archives; we can’t give them time to retrieve whatever it is they were looking for.”

Jensyn’s odd behavior suddenly made sense. “Commander Jensyn went deeper into the academy after we’d been told Tython was attacked. There must be multiple pieces to this puzzle. There must be—“ Tal’shanri hesitated before she voiced her concern, making such an accusation was not something she took lightly. “Traitors on both sides."

Felix simply shrugged at the accusation. “Between both Zenith and Theron working on it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them had solved this mystery by the time we’re done here.” Felix paused and visibly hesitated before he continued, “You and Theron... He seems to care for you a great deal…”

It was all Tal'shanri could do to keep from laughing at the prospect. “Theron /shan/ is Grandmaster Satele’s son. Even if I did feel anything towards him, and I don’t, I’m not interested in becoming the slightly renamed star in a thousand holonovels about his mystical powers of seduction.” Felix’s jaw dropped and he made an intelligible sound that was a cross between a laugh and a shock.

“ _Grandmaster Satele_ has a son?!”

“I thought we were in a hurry here?”

“You can’t just tell me the Grandmaster of the Jedi order went a broke the _Number One Jedi rule_ and expect me to just keep going like that’s not earth shaking news.”

“You really must have been holonet deprived on Hoth to not have known this.”

Felix just throw up his hands in surrender, apparently having decided that trying to have a conversation as they ran at a near sprint along a back trail towards the temple wasn’t worth the exasperation. Two of the AA guns had fallen silent, and a second shuttle landed off in the distance. Her place really should have been helping the squad of soldiers with the AA guns, leaving them to fight alone didn’t quite sit right with her. But the Captain was right, her taking out the Sith Lords closer to the temple was the ‘best’ usage of her skills.

The two slowed slightly as they got closer to the temple, careful to stay hidden in the tall grass along the ridgeline while they scouted. Their reduced pace meant Felix went back to trying to make conversation again, “So, what happened to your arm?”

“I got hit by force lightning.”

“I mean if you don’t want to actually tell me—“

“That’s really what happened.”

“You look like a Chiss-Zabrak hybrid, and you want me to believe force lightning did that to you?”

“Yes.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you can just say so.”

“It’s been a long day Felix. I’m telling the truth. I promise.”

He dropped the subject, although his gaze lingered on her arm as they slipped past the inner ring of AA guns and into the temple courtyard.

 


	11. "Your order has more than enough relics to go around"

The AA guns closest to the temple were each being guarded by a single Sith Lord and three apprentices, all grouped up in defensive formations, expecting attacks from the front not from an infiltration team. It felt almost too easy as she and Felix breezed through taking down the four groups. All it took was a stun grenade rolled carefully into the middle of the group, with Tal’shanri there to Force Mesmerize anybody still left standing. Even for apprentices, many of the Sith looked far too young, some of them seemed barely old enough to hold a lightsaber much less be on a mission like this.

Leaving sixteen Sith stunned, lightsaber less, and in improved handcuffs – Felix always had extra zip-ties, which had proved to be dead useful in multiple kinds of field repairs – they approached the entrance to the Jedi Temple. Now that the inner ring of AA was down, a half dozen more shuttles had landed, and Republic Forces didn’t seem to be far behind them. While the stun grenades weren’t meant to be long lasting, by Tal’shanri’s estimate it wouldn’t be more twenty minutes and the first wave of troops would be there to collect the prisoners.

She paused for a moment of reflection, looking up at the temple without really seeing it; instead focusing on The Force and centering herself for the battle ahead. This mission was different then Korriban. Korriban, they had been the ones invading, the ones racing against the clock to fight through and then escape out again – but the plan had always been to escape again the end of the day. Not try and hold Korriban.

The Jedi Temple had been hit much harder than the Sith Academy, and parts still smoldered and burned. They would rebuild, of course. The Jedi always managed to recover. The Force on Tython was still strongly tilted toward the light, and more than that, there was too much history here to simply leave. This destruction would simply become a part of that story, told and retold across generations of future Jedi no doubt.

Felix also stared up at the temple while Tal’shanri centered herself, eyes hardened in anger with the emotion that she wasn’t allowed to feel. “You could have been here,” his voice was low and soft and his eyes found her instead of the temple. “I don’t know what I would have done if they had—“

“Felix,” there was a note of warning in her voice, and he stopped talking. He didn’t stop staring at her though, even as she turned her back on him and walked towards the ruined temple.

He didn’t immediately move to follow, half waiting for her to stop and turn around and tell him she needed him to hurry up. But the mission was her focus, and she would manage with or without him. Until that point he hadn’t entirely believed the account of the mission the Zabrak lieutenant had spent part of the flight recording; it had seemed fantastical, even for her – had she really managed to single handedly take down not only the defenses surrounding the Sith Academy but a Dark Lord on top off all that?

Felix found it jarring to think how little she needed him, and how much he found he needed her. She would lie, of course, and once they were back on the ship she would tell everybody it had been a team effort all around, and she couldn’t have done it alone. That was the Jedi way as much as anything: refuse to take credit for your own accomplishments.

But she had just done the unimaginable alone.

 In all the time Felix had known her Tal’shanri had always seemed to have an absolute moral clarity about the fact that her calling as a Jedi precluded any serious attachments. If he followed her, she would make sure he felt needed, but for a moment Felix wondered if she couldn’t have moved twice as fast on her own -- and if she would ever really need anybody.

He jogged after her anyway, and she smiled at him as he caught up to her just inside the entrance. She had already scouted the droid patrols that were sweeping the lower levels, and gave a quick tactical assessment. “Do you think we could use ion grenades to disable them before they can sound any alarms?”

“That should work. Certainly did when we fought droids on Belsavis.”

She didn’t acknowledge the attempt at conversation, and Felix primed the grenades silently. True to his prediction, the droids didn’t even get off a warning blaster shot before collapsing into a pile of scrap, although Tal’shanri did double check them all before moving on. There was a second droid patrol group at the top of the stairs, and she motioned for Felix to keep with the plan and to toss a grenade in their direction; then used the force to arc it perfectly into place. Two droids fell backwards over the railing, and clattered as they hit the floor.

They both held still at the sound, waiting to see if any human reinforcements were coming and when none did, a dark look crept over Tal’shanri’s face. “I think we’re too late,” her voice was little more than a whisper but Felix could hear an abnormal edge of frustration in it. “Droids and apprentices. Their real force is gone. These are just decoys.”

“It’ll be alright. The important thing is that we drove them off Tython. Who cares if they got some Jedi relic? Your order has more than enough relics to go around; they probably stole a fake anyway.”

Tal’shanri just grimaced, “Let’s just check this last room. I’m sure that most people will share your view of things and we’ll be celebrating soon enough.” The comment stung, probably more then she meant it to, and there was something in her tone that Felix had never heard before.

The sound of hushed voices came into focus as they neared the council chambers room. Tal’shanri could only make out a single word, ‘prophesy’ before the voices went silent. “I sense—“ She paused, confused. “I sense a powerful Sith Lord in that room, yet no hate, no anger.”

“That can’t be right.”

“It can’t be. But it is.”

 


	12. Felix could see the moment her heart stopped.

 “You’re different then what I was expecting,” The Sith Lord didn’t move from his meditation at Tal'shanri's comment. Were it not for the red glow that often attended the dark side, he could have easily passed for a Jedi at first glance.

“Are you sure he’s a Sith? He doesn’t seem very SIth-y?”

“One of the Sith Lords I fought on Korriban was like this too. I’ve never seen it before.”

Lord Goh opened his eyes and stood, eyes lingering on Tal’shanri’s arm with an appraising glance; although he still said nothing.

“Lay down your weapons and surrender and you will not be harmed.”

He simply drew his purple saber in response, pointing at her arm and in a low raspy voice, uttering a single word, “Suffer!”

And it was Korriban all over again, but this time it was worse. It had been enough to bring her to her knees when the wound had been much smaller, and this time around she blacked out, hitting the floor with an ominous thud.

Having to face down a Sith Lord that had just quite possibly murdered one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy with a single word wasn’t something Felix had ever been expecting to do, and he and Lord Goh simply stared at each other for what felt like ages. Felix knew he was probably beneath the Sith Lord to fight. Not that Lord Goh put his weapon away, instead he seemed to be waiting for Felix’s reaction.

“Is she dead?”

Lord Goh shook his head no. “Not yet.”

That didn’t actually seem to be meant as a threat, but more a diagnosis of her condition, and Felix felt a flicker of hope. “Can I take her and go?”

Lord Goh shook his head no again, this time pointing his saber at Felix threateningly. “Fight.”

“I don’t want to fight you. I want to save my friend.”

Lord Goh sighed in acceptance of the confrontation, before raising his hands towards the ceiling in what even Felix could tell was some sort of force channel. Seconds later the floor began to shake alarmingly as small chunks of rock rained down from the celing.

The shaking snapped Tal’shanri out of her blackout, and she rolled to the side just in time to avoid a falling rock. Her legs gave out before she could stand; but she turned the motion into a forward roll, springing out of it into a downward slash that disrupted Lord Goh’s channeling and forced him to bring his saber up in defense. “Su—“ Before he could finish the word Tal’shanri kicked him in the stomach, knocking his breath away. He hit back with a wave of force energy, knocking her across the room.

“Su—“ Felix had caught onto not letting Lord Goh use the word as a trigger, and threw a poison grenade to give Tal’shanri a moment to recover. It wasn’t strong enough to do much more then irritate a Sith Lord, but at deterring him speaking it worked wonders. Tal’shanri still couldn’t seem to manage to stand correctly, and only just managed to roll and spring out of the way of an impaling strike, even as Felix brought his rifle up to take a shot he realized it was going to be too late. “Suffer!”

From across the room, and in slow motion, Felix could see the moment her heart stopped.

No.

NO.

Felix wasn’t even aware of what he was doing as he ran towards Lord Goh, and was barely conscious of hitting the Sith with a Grav-ball tackle knocking him to the floor, and sending his lightsaber skittering across the floor. Of all the things Sith were probably trained to counter, being body checked by a solider with a gun was probably not one of them. Lord Goh reached with the Force for his saber, but it was already too late. It only took Felix an instant to draw his emergency vibro knife and stab downwards through the Chagrin’s neck.

The knife stuck, probably from a slight warp at how much force Felix had used. Chagrins’ thick amphibious skin would have typically repelled most knife strikes; and Felix dimly recalled an old Chargin squad mate from his time served on Duro. The whole squad had been in hazmat gear – except the Chargin who had strolled about like the radiation leakage was nothing. They were a tough species, and dispassionately Felix knew that it was lucky he was alive after a stunt like that.

It didn’t feel right. She should have been be alive. Not him.

“Felix,” it was little more than a breath of a whisper, but he was off like a shot towards Tal’shanri’s side. “Felix did you just stab a Sith Lord to death with your emergency vibroknife?”

He bent down and touched her face, trying to confirm that the voice was real and she was alive, and she recoiled ever so slightly. Her pulse was shallow and he could barely see her breathing. “You were dead. I saw it.”

“I was only mostly dead. I’m harder to kill then that.”

It was clear she was in no condition to move, but wasn’t simply a matter of applying Kolto to a wound – beyond the black mottled neck wound from before, there was no evidence of anything that could have possibly caused her to collapse. It didn’t seem like she’d snapped mentally either, although her making a joke like that was slightly out of character. Felix ran his fingers gently along her cheek bone, totally at a loss for anything he could do to help in the moment.

“Felix, stop,” his hand brushed across her lips, in part because he knew that she was going to give him another line about the Jedi Code and he really didn’t want to hear that right now, and in part because she shouldn’t have been talking at all just then.

 “I know, I know. The Jedi Code. Just—“ He looked her in the eyes, and he could see they were slightly cloudy and hazy from pain he could do nothing to ease. “Let me have this moment. Let me be here for you.”

She relaxed ever so slightly and he could feel her pulse stabilize. It was still low, she was still an inch away from slipping into a coma; but the threat was over, things were going to be ok. He brushed a strand a hair back behind her ear as he whispered to her. “Sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

Felix knew that fully conscious she _never_ would have put up with that sort of sentimentality from him. Even with Nadia, who desperately needed affection, Tal’shanri had been overly careful about keeping herself from becoming too attached. Maybe, being raised as a Jedi, it was easier to think that way – but he suspected it was never quite as easy for her to keep a professional distance from everybody as she could make it seem.

The sound of shouting – with dreadful Corellian accents, so clearly Republic forces – echoed from downstairs. It wouldn’t be long he could keep them from waking her, but Felix squished his gear bag into a very lumpy sort of pillow for her before he grabbed Lord Goh’s body and hauled it toward the entrance of the room. A battle story might give her an extra five minutes.

 


	13. The problem was the lack of bars and strip clubs

 “Commander Darock wants to personally meet with you back on the Republic Fleet to thank you for what you’ve done.” To his immense credit Felix had managed to keep everybody away from the council chambers until Tal’shanri managed to walk out on her own. Nobody doubted her explanation of needing to meditate and rest after the battle; but it hadn't been ten minutes after her emergance before a messenger interrupted them.

“Tell him Tython needs me and he can wait until there’s a full complement of Jedi masters here to defend against any Sith Lords we may have missed.”

The twi’leck solider shifted nervously from foot to foot, “This isn’t a request. The Supreme Chancellor’s signature is on the message.”

Felix glared daggers at the Twi’leck, his complaints held in check only because he knew all too well what it was like to be the messenger tasked with telling people things they didn’t want to hear. Tal’shanri, meanwhile, just seemed too tired to object and nodded reluctantly. “You’re leaving, er, now,” the Twi’leck added, fiddling with his uniform and trying to look everywhere but at her.

“Fine, we’ll—“

“Just the Barsen’thor,” knowing that he was going to have to separate the two of them was why the messenger had been so nervous then. “It’s a private shuttle, nobody else is being allowed off planet for the moment, and er, there’s a lot of unhappy troops that weren’t planning on staying that might mutiny over being held here while others were being allowed off planet.”

“Why would they mutiny? Tython is a beautiful restive planet.”

Felix laughed at her question, and she blinked at him in some surprise. “Tython might be both of those things, but it also lacks… certain things…” He trailed off. It just felt weird to admit the problem was the lack of bars and strip clubs to a Jedi. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been to Nar Shaadda; and they had been on missions together that had taken them into seedy establishments plenty of times. It all just seemed to roll right off her, like she had some sort of Jedi immunity to vice.

“I’m sure they’ll manage.” There was just enough dry humor in her reply for Felix to grin sheepishly at her. “Lieutenant, I trust you’ll contact me again once troops are granted leave from Tython.”

She was already following the messenger; and even though she had changed into a shapeless brown robe with the collar fluffed around her neck to hide her wound, she was moving much slower than normal, and it was clearly bothering her. “May the Force be with you,” he shouted after her, but she didn’t turn around and was gone before Felix could say anything else.

“Lieutenant Iresso!”

Felix turned in surprise at the voice. “Jorgan? What’s Havoc Squad doing here?”

“We were here to kill that Sith Lord, now we’re stuck like everybody else.” The Cathar smiled, the first time Felix had ever seen him do so. “I’ll make sure you get out with us and don’t get stuck here like you did on Hoth.” This was a /much/ friendlier reunion then Felix would have expected given how they had parted, but Jorgan seemed… Different. “My wife will want to meet you. She’s convinced that you actually managed to stab a Chargin clean through the neck.”


	14. The multitude of possibilities that things could always have gone better

The flight back to the Republic Fleet was uneventful, the only other one aboard was a ship’s droid that politely puttered about but otherwise left her alone. Tal’shanri knew she should have taken the chance to sleep, but, every time she closed her eyes visions of darkness threatened. Hallow Voice’s vision swirled in her thoughts too. When she had been between life and death, there had been a figure with golden hair -- the only sure thing about the vision was that it was on nobody she had ever seen before.

Somebody she was destined to meet and hadn’t yet.

It was not the Jedi way to seek visions, and Tal’shanri had previously declined Gaden-Ko’s offer to teach her about them; but, completing the trials of the mystics while on Voss had changed how the force flowed around her. She had never mentioned to Grandmaster Satele that she had seen a vision of Master Syo as the First Son -- in part because she hadn’t understood then, of course, what the vision had meant. Had she, perhaps a great many Jedi might have been spared during the battle for Corellia, perhaps... Perhaps a great many things. That was the danger with visions, the multitude of possibilities that things could always have gone better. 

The privacy of the ship did allow her to finally check just how bad the force wound had gotten. It was clearly spreading, although left alone it didn’t exactly hurt. The a pattern of black raised stripes had spread to cover the area from her neck down across her shoulder; all the way down her arm; across almost her whole back; and down the left side of her stomach. Even with her limited medical knowledge, she could tell it was the same infection, but why it looked different was beyond her.

Felix had been right, it did make her look like strange Zabrak hybrid. But, given that it didn’t hurt, and she was not exactly going to be running into any Sith Lords on the Republic Fleet, Tal’shanri set it aside; simply keeping the collar of her borrowed robe turned up to hide the discoloration. Force wounds often had strange effects, but soon enough she would head for the healer’s enclave on Courscant and have it checked out. There were much more pressing matters still at hand than a few stripes.

\--

An honor guard met the shuttle, a full twenty soldiers in polished dress uniforms announcing to the whole fleet that The Barsen’thor of The Jedi Order had returned victorious. They escorted her to a raised dais, where Colonel Darok stood smiling with a polished wooden box in his hand, and flanked by enough holocameras to embarrass a Hutt. “The people of the Republic are in your debt today Barsen’thor. Not only did you brave the depths of the Sith Academy on Korriban to retrieve Vital Security Data, you personally led the counter attack that retook the Jedi Temple on Tython. The accounts of your heroism in single-handedly taking down a Dark Lord of the Sith will go down in history!"

Darock hadn’t struck her as the type to be an attention hound during their brief meeting on the Fleet. Why then we he doing this? He held out the box to her and flipped the lid open to reveal a medal, one that even she had to admit was a stunning work of craftsmanship. “The Republic presents you the Medal of Valor!” The crowd went crazy, and the holocameras swooped across a sea of adoring faces before panning back to her. Despite the fanfare she kept a calm expression, probably perfectly playing towards everybodys’ ideal of a stoic and humble Jedi Master. “The Supreme Chancellor personally commissioned this for you after I told her on your success on Korriban, and had it expedited after she heard that you had travelled immediately to Tython.”

“Barsen’thor, you represent the ideals of The Republic; you have brought honor to the Jedi Order; and you are the Hero the Republic needs in these dark times. War is upon us, and we need leaders like you in our fight against the Sith Empire! Please accept this medal, and our unyielding gratitude for your bravery and sacrifice.” He took the medal from the box and moved to pin it on her.

A refusal to accept the medal given that the whole ceremony was being beamed around the galaxy on a live holonews broadcast would cause outrage. Tal'shanri knew this, and realized that this must have been Darock’s plan, to turn her into a propaganda poster where the bounds of her allowed actions were dictated by what might end up all over the holonet, or any number of handlers with fancy job titles. It was really a brilliant play on his part, the type of tactic that didn’t seem insidious until it was too late. There were precious seconds to weigh her options, but in the back of her mind Tal’shanri knew there really was only one choice if she didn’t want to end up a puppet.

She caught Darok’s hand before he could pin the medal on her. “I cannot accept this honor.”

His eyes narrowed at that, and she felt a frustrated anger course through him. “This is—“

“Jedi serve without thought for our own lives, a thousand nameless heroes across the galaxy fighting for the ideals of the Republic. A medal would only set me apart from the others in The Order and serve as a distraction from our mission. My title as Barsen’thor is more honor than I would have sought for myself; I seek only to serve, not to be recognized or honored for my duty.”

The crowd was divided about the issue, although most seemed to be on Darok’s side and upset about her refusal. He was making the same sort of situational awareness check but ended up pulling his hand free of her grasp and slowly stowing the medal back in the box. “You really are a true Jedi,” it was almost said in a mocking tone. “Very well then.”

“You’re still a hero of the Republic Barsen’thor, medal or not,” he raised his voice to address the crowd instead of just her, with a smile as cold as his eyes as he made a sweeping gesture toward her. “Please, at least celebrate this victory with us Jedi!” It was probably a bridge to far for her to refuse that too and she managed a smile for the cameras, although she maintained a conspicuously more than professional distance between Darok and herself until the cameras floated off to take B-roll footage of the crowd that was milling about.

After he had checked twice to make sure there weren't any cameras in range Darok stepped towards her menacingly, “You should have taken the medal and been a nice propaganda tool. The next time we meet, it won’t be as allies.” He was gone before she could ask what _that_ meant, striding quickly through the crowd with an apologetic smile and excuses about him needing to get back out into the field.

“Not that it makes this any less awkward, but I think Satele would have approved of your actions.”

 


	15. Having half the army occupied with ‘rebuilding’ means the Republic has half an army less out on patrols

 “Theron!” Even Sith Lords tended to use Grandmaster Satele’s proper title. Tal’shanri could count on one hand the number of times she had ever heard anybody drop it, and all of them were from the same person. “It’s good to see you again, I never got the chance to properly thank you for disabling that guardian droid.”

Theron laughed and shrugged it off, “And I never got the chance to thank you for lending me Zenith and Tharan. Let’s call it even?”

“Are they here?”

“No, they’re both on Nar Shaadda at a SiS safehouse. Qyzen is on Taris hunting Neckghouls, and Nadia is still safe on Alderran with House Terel. House Organa has put out word that she’s under their protection as well; she’s a bit shaken but seems to be treating the whole thing as a grand adventure still. Felix went after you, given that I don’t see him, I assume that he’s still stuck on Tython with half the Republic army?” Theron spoke in a low whisper and turned subtly every time a holocamera got too close, clearly practiced at keeping away from them.

Tal’shanri nodded at the question, but didn’t offer any explanation for why she was here and he was still there. “Havoc’s stuck on Tython too,” she added and shook her head exhaustedly about it all. “Why send half the army after there’s nobody left to fight? None of this makes any sense.”

“Because having half the army occupied with ‘rebuilding’ means the Republic has half an army less out on patrols,” Theron’s was being careful to avoid moving his mouth too much as she spoke, although the seriousness in his tone was clear. “There’s been a dozen Mandalorian backed pirate attacks on shipping lanes in the past month. Not anything that would raise alarms, but—“ Theron seemed to grow more agitated with every passing word. “The Sith are getting hit too; and they’ve thrown huge piles of resources at rebuilding Korriban. They maybe diverting even more men away from the front than we are. Five Capital ships in orbit over both Drommund Kaas and Korriban; slaves mobilized to rebuild on a scale not seen in a hundred years -- and all at the orders of one man. Darth Arkous.”

The name triggered something, and for a split second she could see a clear picture of a thin pureblooded Sith Lord standing on the deck of one of the capital ships. The same golden haired woman from her vision was there in the background, reading something to Arkous from a datapad, her brows furrowed in a nearly identical worried expression to Theron’s. “What do we know about Arkous?”

“Not much. The Dark Council go to great lengths to avoid letting the SiS get too close. We’re lucky to have even gotten a name. The only records of him I could find were a mention that he led an attack on a Republic transport ship, and that he seems to have been associates with the Lord Goh, the Sith Lord from Tython.”

“Does he have any other known associates?”

Theron seemed slightly perplexed by the question, “Only the others on the Dark Council; and I wouldn’t exactly call them associates. Like I said, the SiS has never had much luck with gaining insight into Sith Politics outside of common knowledge. Their counter-intelligence is—“

He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘better’, but the pause stretched out until with a gritted teeth sigh he added, “at least equal to our own. Luckily, /I/ don’t have to find Arkous. Colonel Darok is going to led us to him.” Theron’s eyes lit up at this. “I overheard him threaten you, and slipped a tracker into his bag while he was moving through the crowd. All we have to do is wait for him to turn up somewhere off the records and we’ll have them both.”

The two had to have been working together, even Tal’shanri couldn’t ignore just how many times they had acted with improbable coordination. There were still unanswered questions though – knowing who was involved was much less important than understanding why. Even a member of the Dark Council couldn’t hope to control a Rakata weapon; so why ally with a Republic colonel to find one? And more importantly, why would a Republic Colonel agree to this type of deal? There had to be another higher commander – but who?

“Agreed. Let me know as soon as you have anything.” She paused, considering for a moment. “Until we know just how deep this conspiracy goes, it’s probably best if Zennith and Tharan stay under SiS protection.”

“I’ll make sure it’s the right SiS protection too.” Theron took a step close to her, “I promise we’ll get the people behind this. I won’t let—“ whatever that statement was going to be was cut off as he noticed the scar on her neck for the first time. She had managed to keep it hidden until now, but with the jostling of the crowd and having to keep turning to follow Theron and avoid the holocameras, the barest edge was now visible above her collar.

She caught his hand before he could brush her robe away to get a better look. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”

“If that were true you wouldn’t have stopped me from taking a look at it.”

He did have a point there. “I got hit with force lightning on Korriban. It’s fine. Really.”

Theron looked pained at that, “I thought Darok had just turned my connection to your comm link off after my stunt with calling him out about betting against you. I didn’t realize that it had actually gone down.” There was something else in his expression that she couldn’t quite place, not exactly anger, but more an low-level hate for Darok flaring up. “You should never have had to go into that fight without support the way you did.”

She let go of his hand at that, surprised by how much that bothered him. “Theron, I was fine.”

He reached again to brush her collar down to get a better look and this time she doesn’t bother to stop him. “No, you weren’t,” his eyes widened and his tone switches from slightly more than professional concern to shock, “and no you aren’t! You have to go to a healer, Now.”

“I’m fine.”

Theron threw up his hand in exasperation. “Where in the Jedi Code does it teach that you all have to be so, so, stubborn about everything!”

“Chapter four, alongside the section on how to be a killjoy at parties.”

Theron was caught between emotions at that, trying not to laugh while still obviously concerned about her. “Just. Please. Go get it looked at. I’ll just worry until you do.”

“I promise, I will.”


	16. “Why do you resist the dreaming? The whisperer seeks you.”

The only ones left on the ship when she returned later that evening turned out to be Hallow Voice and a younger esh-ka. “Seeking a name” was the only explanation Hallow Voice offered for any of it, and Tal’shanri knew better then to ask. The two muttered with low voices in their strange language, and watched her more intently then normal. Or maybe it was just they seemed to be around more than normal on an empty ship. She couldn’t tell.

Tal’shanri checked the ship’s holonet terminal, learning the nearest Jedi Healer was on Voss. With Tharan gone it wasn’t a full version of Holiday running the ship. There was no giggle and no bubblegum pink avatar, but the ship still seemed to have something of her in it, and responded to her voice commands. It was a relief that she wouldn’t have to pilot the ship for fourteen hours. C2N2, of course, was capable of piloting, but always protested that he was not designed for it.

“Sky Hunter?” It was the younger esh-ka that approached her. He kept a respectful distance, with his ears flattened against his head in what she could clearly tell was submission to her authority. “Why do you resist the dreaming? The whisperer seeks you.”

“Who is the whisperer?” She regretted the question as soon as she had asked it. She hadn’t slept in – how long had it been at this point? She couldn’t even recall. She rubbed her temples and let out a slow breath, “Don’t answer that. I’ll stop resisting the dreaming. Just, wake me when we get to Voss?”

The esh-ka smiled, it was hard for their species to manage the gesture, but even as strange as the attempt looked, she could tell that was what he was trying to approximate. “I will guard you against the darkness.”

\--

It was the same golden haired woman from before, only younger, and standing outside a not-ruined Sith Academy looking up at the building and lagging behind a larger group of what Tal’shanri assumed were apprentices in training. It was almost like witnessing a memory, but, she had never heard of having a prophetic vision of the past before – and there was something else about it. A sense that if she had reached down and picked up the sand, it would have been real.

Why was the Force showing her this?

The vision swirled away, this time cutting to the woman standing in between the two minor sith lords she had fought Korriban. Cestus stepped forward first, a voice from the shadows asking him to explain what the Sith Code meant before he walked dutifully forward into the mist; Arzanon was next, and simply stood there, a lone figure in the darkness before he walked forward and vanishing into the mist as well.

The woman didn’t step forward, instead she turned around and met Tal’shanri’s gaze. Her eyes were a striking shade of gold flecked with orange. Tal’shanri found it impossible not to notice how distinctive they looked, and how much they suited her. Arkous stepped out of the shadows, extending a hand towards the woman who seemed torn between following him and taking a step towards Tal’shanri instead.

Tal’shanri took three steps forward, although the distance between them didn’t seem to change. “Don’t—“ don’t what? She didn’t even have an answer for her own statement. “Look, Arkous isn’t who you think he is if those two followed him,” that at least was a sensible statement.

“Would you trust a Jedi over your own Mentor?” It was the first time she had heard Arkous speak and the faux honey in his voice was well-practiced and had she not dealt with The First Son, Tal’shanri might have even believed him.

“Jedi don’t lie.”

Arkous laughed, a Sith-y cackle of amusement, and took another step towards the woman, putting a hand on her shoulder paternalistically. “All the Jedi do is lie. Come with me my dear. Let me show you the true power of the force.”

“Search your feelings. You know that he’s lying.” At that Tal’shanri managed to make headway in moving forward, and extended her own hand towards the dream woman. “Trust me.”

There was something about the dream that felt real, as if they were all in the same room together actually having this conversation. Which was an utter impossibility of course. The dream woman hesitated only a moment longer before she reached out and took Tal’shanri’s hand – and the grip felt real and solid even as the dreamscape shuttered and cracked at the edges.

Arkous’s eyes turned a solid black color, and he lashed out with the force but not in any form Tal’shanri had ever seen. The very fabric of the dream itself started to come apart, but somehow, the nameless Esh-ka was there at her side, a steading force against a chaotic cacophony of force waves rebounding off themselves and splintering the dream into thousands of different glimpses into memories. She turned and asked, “Is this how you see the galaxy?”

“Yes.”

“I think I understand more about you now.”

“Hallow Voice said you were wise Sky Hunter.” He walked ahead of her and she followed him. She was less and less convinced this was a dream at all. It was, something entirely different. Somehow she had actually been there, wherever there was, and had that conversation. Before she could ask, the esh-ka spoke from two places at once, “Wake now.”

And with that she was back on the ship, with Voss outside the window. “Holiday? How long was I asleep?”

Holiday wasn’t there of course, and the ship didn’t respond to her name as a code word. Instead the voice of a Voss came through the comm, “Proceed to the orbital station.” The esh-ka must have been true to his word and woken her just as they had jumped back to regular space. Tal’shanri reached for the controls only to have the ship respond on its own, the voice control having picked up on that command. Tal'shanri made a mental note to configure the voice command settings once she returned to the ship, it could be a problem having it respond to some voice commands but not others. “Your message requesting a healer was received, one has been sent to the station. Do not attempt to land on Voss.”

It was a strange welcome. The Republic Alliance with the Voss had always been shaky at best, but it had been rumored to have been improving lately – and yet that greeting was downright frosty coming from a Voss.

 


	17. "It’s almost as if it's you personally they're afraid of.”

Four Voss Commandos were waiting as she disembarked. “Gaden-Ko has had a vision that death follows in your wake. You are not welcome on Voss any longer.” Prolonged contact with the Republic finally seemed to have finally taught the Voss to be direct.

“I’m only here seeking a Jedi healer. I will leave as soon as my business is done.”

“We honor your position among the Jedi. You are allowed to speak to your own people outsider.”

“Thank you.”

They escorted her to a side room on the space station where a willowy Mirialan Jedi was waiting. “Barsen’thor. I—I’m honored by your presence.” The Commandos took up guard positions at the door, but were content to leave them to their business beyond that.

“I have a force wound that needs looking at,” Tal’shanri unwrapped a ridiculous looking neon green scarf from around her neck in order to let the healer look at the slash. She had almost gotten used to the process of hiding the scar, and it felt strange to be willingly showing it to somebody else.

“That’s not a force wound.”

“I got it after I was hit with force lightning. What else could it be?” That was a little harsher sounding then Tal’shanri had meant to come off as, and she regretted it immediately. “I’m sorry Healer. I only mean to clarify, not attack your judgement.”

The Mirialan woman tutted and ran a hand down Tal’shanri’s neck. “I’ve never seen anything like this. But, I can assure that whatever it actually is, it isn’t a force wound.” The healer closed her eyes, bright white force energy flowing out of her palm to no effect. “I’ve heard stories of Dark Side abominations raised by the Witches of Danthomir; but even the Sith reject that type of Force Mysticism." The healer paused before adding, "was there anything different about the lightning that hit you? Was it black by any chance? If it was black force energy that hit you then that’s _really_ bad.”

“No I don’t think it was black, the Sith had purple lightning to match his saber.” Tal’shanri closed her eyes and tried to recall the exact color but couldn’t picture it. “It was no different than any other time I’ve been hit by force lightning before.” She shifted away from the Mirialan's touch, “Several Sith I’ve fought have seemed to know something about it though. The last Sith Lord, all it took was a snap of his fingers and—“ she shuddered involuntary trying to put words to the sensation of having The Force burn from the inside out but not finding any, “what ever this is, it's particularly susceptible to the Dark Side.”

“I wish I could be of more help Barsen’thor, but if it really is something we’ve never seen before dealing with the Dark Side, that’s beyond my knowledge. There might be somebody on Nar Shaadda – but they’re not likely to want to talk to somebody of your stature in The Order. If anything, I would have assumed that your knowledge of healing rituals would have been sufficient.”

“At first it was,” Tal’shanri could tell the healer was more curious than anything else and that endeared her to answering honestly. “But the same thing happened to me as with you. No matter how much force energy I put behind healing it, nothing happens.”

“You may want to ask Grandmaster—“

“The Grandmaster is very busy. I won’t bother her over it.”

“As you say Barsen’thor. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

“I appreciate you taking the time to see me, I know the Voss can be—“

“They spoke fondly of you until Gaden-Ko returned. They still value the alliance with the Republic, if anything they seem to want more promises of security. It’s strange, it’s almost as if it’s you personally they're afraid of.”

“It may be.”

“But—“

“If Gaden-Ko believes that I am a threat to his people, I honor that vision.” The Voss Commandos turned at the sharpness in her tone and she held up a calming hand. “I would ask you do the same and not question their visions.”

The healer nodded nervously, and Tal’shanri placed a hand on her shoulder. “May the Force be with you healer.”

“May the Force Protect you Barsen’thor.”

 


	18. "The sea summons you, at its heart you will find your storm.”

Back aboard the ship there was still no word from Theron. No word from Felix (or Havoc Squad), even Nadia hadn’t sent a message to check in. Heading alone to Nar Shaadda to search for a sympathetic former Sith just felt like an exhausting task, the type that Zenith or Tharan would have been able to accomplish much more effectively than she could ever hope to. There were other options of course, asking around on Tatooine, where anything could be found for the right price, would probably be the second most efficient way to find somebody.

That wasn't what she was going to do though. She needed time to think. “Set course for Hoth.” The ship pulled away from the orbital station and jumped to hyperspace silently. She had picked Hoth as much for the long journey as anything. Maybe by the time they got to Hoth she would have a real destination in mind. After a moment Tal’shanri turned to find both Esh-ka standing behind her, looking out the window.

“Between the stars, the choir sings in harmony. Many voices become one voice, and we hear the song again. What do you hear Sky Hunter?”

She started to answer Hallow Voice’s question, then stopped; extending a hand toward the patriarch who clasped it in his own. Tal’shanri slowed her breathing and allowed The Force clear her mind of troubles; focusing on the connection between her and Hallow Voice. “I hear whispers in the Force.” She reached for them, and they slipped away. Tal’shanri let them go without entirely understanding why, and a silence in the force settled over her mind. Being alone with her thoughts felt strange -- there had always been purpose before now, worries about her team, assignments from the jedi council, even simply the general undercurrent of the war between the republic and the empire had always guided her meditation.

“Silence becomes you Sky Hunter,” Hallow Voice folded his hands behind his back as he spoke, eyes half closed. “We hear the future as the ocean. The sea summons you, at its heart you will find your storm.”

The second nameless esh-ka placed a hand on her shoulder, “My name lies under the same ocean, I will fight beside you.”

As soon as the second esh-ka grabbed her shoulder Tal’shanri could hear the sound of waves breaking against duracrete fortifications, the low rumble of thunder from an angry green-grey sky, and the shattering crack of lightning strikes close enough to be felt and heard simultaneously. There was fear too, wrapped in a sound that was somewhere between a scream and a surrender, fear that the seawall wouldn’t hold, coupled with the knowledge that the ocean always reclaimed her own — and that the great sea gods were only ever appeased with living sacrifices in return for their kolto bounties.

Tal'shanri's eyes snapped open, she _knew_ where she had to go now. “Redirect course: Manann.”

“Confirm request: docking permissions required.”

“Can you forge the proper clearance required?”

“Negative.”

“Can you purchase one using discretionary funds?”

The ship was silent for a moment before it answered somewhat smugly with just an echo of Holiday’s voice, “Purchase confirmed. Landing clearance granted.”

Tal’shanri never would have admitted to missing Holiday, but not for the first time she felt a pang of sadness about not having the AI around. The purchase price of the landing clearance was undoubtedly going to alert people to where she was headed, but that couldn’t have been helped without a slicer aboard. Even then, there was nobody else in the galaxy that traveled with esh-ka as companions.

Manaan was certainly a strange place for the force to have chosen to send her, as even when she had worked with the rift alliance she had never made the trip to the Selkath home world. The jedi order weren't welcome, and more than one political skirmish had broken out over the selkath’s stance on training their own order of force sensitive warriors. It was doubtful her reception would be warm -- all she hoped for at this point was that her jump didn’t prompt a deadly response.

 


	19. "Please, Barsen’thor don’t do this!"

 “Barsen’thor! Had I know you were planning a visit I would have arranged for a personal audience,” the holo form of Shuuru seemed deeply apologetic as he paced in and out of frame. “as it stands, even though you have clearance to land, I’m afraid my government is requesting that you wait in orbit until proper security arrangements can be made.”

“Security arrangements?”

Shuuru shifted uncomfortably and answered slowly, “A dignitary from The Empire is planet-side. One who my government has given protection to, and that they believe would be at risk from your visit here.” He held up his hands preemptively against her complaints. “I argued that you have shown great restraint in dealing with Imperials, but that nasty business on Korriban…”

He shrugged helplessly. “I can’t stop you from landing against their wishes, of course, but it would represent a major breach of diplomatic protocol,” he transmitted docking bay codes and shuffled nervously. “I hope you know what you’re doing either way.”

The hologram cut out and Tal’shanri sighed. The Selkath wouldn’t have bothered protecting an imperial of lower status than her. Their ability to deal with both sides depended on a layers of plausible deniability based on authority — which meant there was almost certainly a member of the dark council down there; but who and why were they on Manaan of all worlds?

The Emperor’s Wrath was a strong candidate, the Dark Council tended to avoid travel where possible, but the Wrath wasn’t bound to their traditions. The pureblood warrior had put out a statement responding to Soverus’s death by swearing vengeance against his killer, and had placed a bounty big enough to buy a small moon out on anybody with information about the attack on Korriban.

It may have even rivaled the long standing bounty the Chiss Ascendancy had on her, not that Tal’shanri had bothered to look to see what it had reached these days. The BBA had long ago stopped openly publishing Ascendancy contracts, and while rumors were perpetually swirling that an Ascendancy representative had tried to contact the last remaining Great Hunt Champion about a Black List contract, nothing concrete had happened. The legendary Hunter had supposedly cut ties with all known contacts after killing Supreme Chancellor Janrus and was rumored to have become a personal assassin for the Dark Council.

Whoever it was down there, Tal’shanri knew she didn’t really have a choice but to land anyway. The pull of the Force was unmistakable now, an urgency in the back of her mind that wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak, threatening to strangle her into compliance if she resisted. “Initiate docking sequence,” the ship glided smoothly into an atmospheric descent, and the holocommunicaor immediately flashed and went through on an emergency frequency.

“Guards are on their way to meet your ship in the docking bay, please, Barsen’thor don’t do this,” Shuuru’s voice had a pleading edge to it, and his snout twitched nervously. He turned and shouted at somebody off frame, “This is a most intolerable situation! She is a member of the Jedi Council! The Senate will be most—“ his signal dropped as the ship docked, force shield and blast doors closing ominously behind her.

“Scan for life forms in the docking bay.”

“One life form detected. Human. Identity confirmed: Theron Shan.”

 


	20. "You should avoid anywhere in civilized space for the foreseeable future."

“Did you get your arm checked out?” Theron seemed almost blasé about the whole meeting as he stood there with a half grin on his face. “You’re wearing a scarf on a tropical world, so I’m going to assume you didn’t.”

Tal’shanri couldn’t help but laugh at that. She had honestly forgotten about the scarf completely, with nobody besides esh-kha around it was easy to go long stretches of time without thinking about her appearance at all. “The Jedi healer on Voss wasn’t sure what it was,” she pulled the scarf loose and the black striations were gone, replaced by a grey scale-like pattern that blended in much closer to her regular skin tone. “But it seems to be healing just fine on its own.” She tugged off her gloves at that, and ignored the snort of amusement from the esh-kha behind her.

Theron’s smile grew to his whole face as he crossed the hanger towards her and pulled Tal’shanri into a half hug when they met. It wasn't romantic so much deeply relieved. “Your ship has been in stealth mode for weeks — no communications, no sightings, it was as if you’d vanished off the face of the galaxy. Tharan’s work. He apologized — I know, unbelievable right — and said you would have no way of knowing that the stealth mode was even active.”

The total silence from her team made more sense at that revelation. Theron continued, “Zenith caught the transaction for the docking permit in time to reroute it through a shell company on Balmorra before anybody else could see who you really were. Not fast enough to avoid alerting the authorities,” Theron ran a hand through his hair with a sigh, “but fast enough that we could pretend you’re still missing.”

“Why would I need to still be missing?”

Theron laughed grimly. “Because the Sith Empire’s bounty on you keeps getting bigger and bigger. They’re all trying to outdo each other in faux outrage. You should have seen Zenith’s face when the Darth-Lachris memorial fund contributed ten million credits to the collective bounty pool.”

“So, I should avoid Nar Shaada for the foreseeable future?”

Theron’s expression darkened even farther, “You should avoid anywhere in civilized space for the foreseeable future. The Dark Council’s personal bounty hunter has taken the contract — and Tal’shanri, this hunter is one of the only people in the galaxy you should be afraid of. She spearheaded the attack on Tython, and then turned right around and killed Commander Jensyn on Korriban. The Lord Wrath has personally promised to aid her should she ever need his assistance, and the Dark Council has publicly supported her authority to kill whomever she wants with impunity.”

“We have a name for this hunter,” Theron looked up at the esh-kha with surprise that the creature had an opinion on the matter. “This Hunter is Void Thirst, her name came to all in a dream after she slaughtered Heart Rend and his clan. Many would follow her into the Great War.”

“Do you believe this bounty hunter capable of finding us here Theron?”

“No. I was already here when Zenith called, and I’ve seen every departing passenger from the main hanger for the past week. Darth Arkous is here, as is Commander Darok. Unfortunately Arkous’s attachés are also here, and they may make things more difficult for us. But, Tal’shanri, we need to get out of this hanger before the guards figure out they've been sent to the wrong place."

 


	21. “I’m sure I could be convincing about being so /very/ desperate for your company."

Theron handed her a bundle of black cloth that felt surprisingly heavy, and Tal’shanri unfolded it to reveal a Sith mask and blood stained black dress robes. “I brought a disguise that should make moving around Manaan considerably easier for the both of us.” Tal’shanri considered arguing, but it was a fight she knew she wouldn’t win. Without a particular thought for modesty — something that had always been a concern of hers until right this second — she started to switch into the blood stained Sith robes.

After he realized what was going on, Theron turned around with a surprised cough and slight blush and mumbled something about having meant for her to change on the ship. She should have been thankful for the gesture of respect, but instead couldn’t help but feel ever so slightly disappointed that he wasn’t interested — an emotion she knew made no sense. She hadn't been lying to Felix about having no interest in Theron. Why then was her mind wandering?

A question for later.

“Theron, you’ll have to help tie the cross knots in the back. Esh-kha don’t have thumbs and I can’t reach.” The mask distorted her voice into a sultry husky sound, and it also turned her subsequent laugh into a ridiculous cackle. Theron initially couldn’t seem to breathe from laughing at the effect. If he simply hadn’t known about the modulator, or if this whole Sith disguise had initially started out as his idea of a joke wasn’t clear either.

“Yes Lord,” he caught his breath and looked at her, and this time there was a flicker of interest in his gaze. “Lord Divranus?” The question in his voice was asking if she had a better idea for a fake Sith name. Honestly, she had never actually thought about it. Divranus wasn’t the worst Sith name she had ever heard, and it was bland enough to be both forgettable and believable.

“Lord Divranus,” it did sound good when she said it, and she almost felt attached to the name, only, it wouldn’t be Lord Divranus for long. She would make the Dark Council in—Theron’s hand slipped from finishing the complex pattern of knots and brushed against her back, and she snapped back to reality. His hand lingered for a split second too long, just enough for her to notice she suspected.

“You look,” Theron took a step back to admire his handiwork with the knots, although that was not where his eyes stayed for long. “like a very convincing Sith Lord.”

Tal’shanri felt a nagging sense that she needed to tell Theron to knock it off. She had lectured Felix about the respecting the Jedi Code over much less. She wasn’t herself lately… Getting involved with Theron Shan of all people in the galaxy… Something, something, wasn’t right...

“And what’s your cover story? Or is Lord Divranus just so smitten with the handsome Republic spy that she’s just dying to tell him all her deepest darkest secrets?” Her hand moved to Theron’s shoulder without her entirely being conscious of the gesture, and she took a step closer to him. “I’m sure I can be very convincing about being so very desperate for your company,” Her hand brushed his jawline, although the gesture had the opposite effect she had intended and Theron took three hasty steps backwards before he bumped into the esh-kha.

“This isn’t you,” his words sounded like they were being shouted from a great distance, and there was a buzzing in her ears. But she knew he was right. This wasn’t her, and with a great effort she shook off a foggy mental presence, and blushed a dark navy blue as she realized what almost happened before she too took several scrambled, half falling in the floor length robe, steps backwards.

“I’m so sorry. I—“ she pulled the mask off because the ridiculous voice modulator was not helping the situation, “I haven’t been myself since Korriban. Thank you for recognizing that and not—“ she almost said taking advantage of the situation, but that was not what she was thankful for. There was still a dark navy tint to her cheeks, and the feeling lingered that what she wanted and what she knew to avoid were way out of alignment.

Theron just waved a hand before she could offer any further explanation, “I’ve, uh, already established a persona as Republic freetrader looking to cut a profitable deal with the Empire to deal in Jedi artifacts. Both sides want their both their own treasures back, and the Empire in particular has agents on all the neutral planets offering top prices for relics. They must have lost something incredibly important to be as desperate as they are about it,” Theron took a step back towards her and seemed to decide that that there was at least a hint of genuine flirtation behind her words as he eyed the blush on her cheeks.

“A sith lord and her bodyguard talking with a smuggler, we’ll blend right in.” Somehow she doubted that, but given that she didn’t have a better idea Tal’shanri pulled the mask back on and followed Theron, briefly taking note of a gaggle of Selketh guards three docking bays down arguing with a frazzled looking Ugnaut.

 


	22. “What an honor, and quite frankly a shock, to see you alive.”

Whispers followed them from the spaceport all the way into the cantina, and Theron seemed perplexed as to why so many people seemed unduly interested in them, muttering under his breath about nosy Selkath. As they sat down two selkath in regal garb approached, bowing all the way to the ground and waiting for acknowledgement that they could rise. “Darth Imperius,” one finally whispered with his face to the floor, “What an honor and quite frankly a shock to see you alive.”

Of course. A masked sith lord traveling with a monster for a bodyguard, it would have been a simple mixup; especially given that Imperius had always worn a mask, carried a double bladed proto-saber (not unlike the one she had found on Tython funnily enough) and been a similar height and weight. Theron’s eyes widened slightly and he shifted uncomfortably at what this meant for his plan. As far as Tal’shanri knew Imperius had simply vanished one day, and although there had been rumored sightings, most had presumed her dead or gone mad somewhere off in wild space.

Tal’shanri turned towards the two groveling Selketh, and waited for just longer then she needed to to wave a hand lazily at them to rise. “And what, do you want?”

“Your, er—“ they both stood and folded their arms behind their backs in gestures of submission, “compatriot Darth Arkous has requested your presence.”

“Tell him he can make his own requests of me. I don’t suffer lackies.”

Theron had to give Tal’shanri credit for a spot on impersonation of Imperius. Had the two met at some point that he wasn’t aware of?

“He—“

“Go,” Tal’shanri flicked a hand dismissively at them and turned away. One of the two scrambled away, and the other looked like he wanted to say something but a rumbled growl from the esh-kha sent him running as well. “Anybody still overly interested in my conversation by the time I count to three will find themselves removed of their prying eyes. One—“

The threat set off a massive scramble to get as far away from the two of them as possible, although the bartender simultaneously made his way towards them in a panic, “Dark Lord, please, my most humble apologies! You may use the backroom for whatever business discussions you wish to conduct! It’s reserved for Selkath dignitaries normally, no listening devices, I swear on my life!”

 


	23. "What are you doing in a broom closet with a Sith Lord?”

“I suspect Arkous will try again to set up a meeting, and I don’t think I’ll pass as Imperius to anybody who knew her,” Tal’shanri leaned against a stack of crates filled with Kolto pouches, and rubbed her neck subconsciously. It had started to itch again. “Do you have a backup plan?”

Theron didn’t answer at first, and waved a holopad around the room, double checking for listening devices; a beep letting him know the room was clean as promised before he turned on her, voice both hard-edged and calm. “I’ve read your files Tal’shanri, and the Jedi they describe could never have pulled that off. Your team, they all said the same things: that you really are 100% dedicated to The Order. Nadia was convinced that you would sooner die before doing anything that could even be the least bit dark side. And you just expect me to believe that somehow you’ve been hiding a knack for impersonating Sith Lords for years?” Theron shook his head, clearly conflicted about the whole situation. “What changed in you?”

Her esh-kha guardian took a threatening step towards Theron, beady eyes glinting. “The rise of Bright Storm has been sung among the stars; your attachment to Sky Hunter cannot change what has already occured!” He placed a hand on Tal’shanri’s shoulder and drew power from her, eyes never leaving Theron.

“I met Imperius on Nar Shaada before she was a Dark Lord. She told me about her dreams of reforming the Empire.” Tal’shanri sighed wearily at the memory. “I wasn’t impersonating a Sith Lord, I was remembering how she talked, even then.”

This was hardly the best time or place for long discussions about the past, but Tal’shanri knew Theron wouldn't drop the subject until he was satisfied with her answer, and so she continued. “Look, things changed for me when the rift alliance all formally joined the republic, it started to feel like I wasn’t needed the same way. Nadia started taking on more responsibilities, Gaden-Ko progressed in his training, even Felix talked about seeing if he could get in contact with Jorgan and see about joining Havoc Squad. My whole team, really, they all moved on around me.”

“It wasn’t improper attachment that left me unsettled, it was that had I been more attached they might not have been so eager to leave in the first place. The fact that I don’t miss Qyzen after all we went through, after he fought by my side for years and killed his own kind, that much non-feeling, for that many years… I’m also still rattled from Korriban and what happened there." Her neck suddenly felt like it was burning, and something dark seethed inside her, whispering to her that she didn't need to suppress her feelings any longer.

Theron nodded, rubbing his temples, “And your flirting with me?”

The backroom was really more of a storeroom, and with an esh-kha, and the stacks of crates in there she and Theron were standing close enough together that as soon as he asked the question she was instantly hyper-aware of the fact she had a hand on Theron’s chest that she didn’t remember putting there. Two conflicting realities overlapped again, the one where getting involved with Theron was a terrible idea for a long list of sensible reasons; and the hazy one that tugged at the corners of her mind suggestively. Alone in a storeroom, disguised as a Sith Lord, nobody would ever have to know...

“I want—“ the second half of that statement was lost as Theron reached for her mask, and his hand lingered on the back of her neck where the mask snapped on. Tal’shanri let him take a step closer and put his other hand on her waist, and she could feel the heat between them.

“I know this is hardly the place for a conversation like this, but, I think we could have something if you wanted it.” There was a moment when he drew close enough to kiss her, lips an inch away from hers although the mask was still between them.

The sound of four sets of footsteps headed towards them interrupted the moment; and Theron recoiled to a suitably professional distance, face flushed. Tal’shanri was immensely glad she could hide her own flushed cheeks behind the mask as she straightened into a power pose of nonchalance and turned towards the door as it opened.

“Theron? What are you doing in a broom closet with a Sith Lord?”

 


	24. "Do you know what the bounty on your head is Barsen’thor? It’s got fifteen zeros!”

“This is not—she is not a Sith Lord, and only Agent Balker is allowed to tell me I’m better than hanging about in closets.”

The commander of Havoc Squad laughed and grinned at Theron with raised eyebrows, “Did Jonas tell you the story about when Aric broke his nose by hitting him with a door?”

Theron’s eyes narrowed, “Was that Tatooine? He told me that was from a scuffle with a bounty hunter!”

Behind the Major were LTs Dorne and Aric, both pointedly pretending the other didn’t exist, and Shuuru who looked incredibly relieved. The cantina was deserted except for the seven of them and two Selkath with aqua colored lightsabers who were standing guard at the entrance.

“Can I please take this off?” LT Dorne’s hand twitched towards her weapon at the accent from the modulator and The Major eyed Tal’shanri while she tugged the mask loose then shook her long hair free and rubbed her neck once it was off.

“You sure you’re not Imperius?”

“Very funny,” Tal’shanri took a second to appreciate the sound of her own voice, “Push your luck Major and I might just have to bring up you-know-what from Ilum.”

“You wouldn’t!” The Major’s brown eyes widened in shock -- half horror half laughter, “I would never have made that bet had I know what was being staked!”

Tal’shanri raised a single eyebrow and the Major threw up her hands in exasperation. “Commander Darok personally got us Evaced from Tython to be here for a Top Secret Priority Alpha mission and by the time we got here, he was gone! There’s Sith lords everywhere we turn and then you jump in and cause a major incident not only by landing when you were told to wait, but by vanishing right out from under everybody’s noses! Do you know what the bounty on your head is Barsen’thor? It’s got fifteen zeros!”

The Mirialan Major was only a hair shorter then Tal’shanri, and ended up about an inch away from her face while she shouted. LT Dorne rolled her eyes and shrugged at Theron who had successfully edged just far enough away from the two women so as to have managed to avoid being in sight for a ‘and dont think this isnt Your Fault’ from The Major.

“What are we supposed to do with you Barsen’thor? I don’t want to risk my people protecting you when the bounty on your head is enough to buy half a fleet!”

“Take me into custody as Imperius, make a huge show of it, and then leave.”

The Major didn’t have a shouted answer for that and chewed her cheek in thought. “Why leave?”

“Darth Arkous will almost certainly attempt to stage a rescue. The Sith will want to talk to Imperius first before they decide if they’re going to kill her, and the embarrassment of having a Darth in custody will force his hand.”

“She’s right,” Theron chimed in, “I don’t like it, but she’s right.”

 


	25. “Victory for the Republic!”

“You do remember that Aric was a deadeye’s sniper right? You sure you want Havoc to surprise you?”

“It won’t work otherwise. It has to be real.” Theron squeezed Tal'shanri's arm as they walked past a group of Imperial Officers on shore leave. They walked hand in hand at Theron’s suggestion that they look couple-y while conducting business on the Promenade. It was sweet, maybe too sweet for her tastes, and she kept debating telling Theron that this wasn’t going to work.

Before she could decide either way, Tal’shanri spotted a glint from a vantage point and yanked Theron to the left, sniper shot missing by a hair. She drew her saber, Imperius’s was yellow, the same color as Tal’shanri’s training duel saber; and drew the force around her. A sense of situational awareness came more easily than it ever had before: Elara was with Yuun in an ambush to the left, Jorgan was reloading and aiming just wide to the right to push them towards the ambush on the left. The Major was waiting just back and to the right to lay down suppressing fire if they choose to stay put.

“Elara and Yuun to your left, stun him first and you’ll be able to get a shot at her while she suppresses her field medic training,” Theron was barely back on balance before she had given her orders and pole vaulted up to where Aric was; grabbing the Cathar by the scruff of the neck as she held her saber up threateningly.

Theron reacted more on instinct then actually having processed what she said, and stunned Yuun; Elara’s split second hesitation just long enough for him to take the second shot. The Major snarled from his right, off like a shot to rescue Aric — then the esh-kha hit her from the side like a freight train. It was enough to knock her down, and the esh-kha had a talon’d hand around her neck in an instant; holding her pinned to the ground until she had stopped struggling.

Aric yowled, and Theron realized in an instant that there had been a secondary plan all along, a dark council member wouldn’t have been beaten so easily, even by spec forces. It would take something more than that to make Arkous believe it was actually Imperius. Tal’shanri said something to Aric, and he pulled loose from her grasp and lunged at her throat, wild eyed and furious. There was an audience now, watching her and Aric, and giving impressed murmurs at every flashy saber trick she pulled. 

The Major blinked several times and the esh’kha nodded subtly at her, and kept his claws around her throat but loose enough to let her breathe and recover. “Your friend here broke my wrist with that tackle. You’ll have to shoot her Theron.”

“What?”

“She’s going to flourish her saber twice and then move to toss Aric over the edge, that’s the signal that she’ll turn around and for you shoot her in the back.”

“Why wasn’t I told?

“Because she knew you’d object to any plan where she really gets shot. You’re too attached to her. Look, Theron, if you don’t shoot her, she actually will toss Aric over the edge. If that happens you can bet that I will find a cliff to toss both you and Jonas over in return.”

Tal’shanri flourished her saber twice, grabbed Aric with a force choke and turned around for a split second. Theron raised his blaster reluctantly, finger hovering over the trigger when Dorne fired first; three shots, and Tal’shanri dropped to the ground, blood visible even at a distance.

The esh-kha was at her side inhumanly fast; but it was still four on two in a matter of seconds. Yuun and Elara pointed their weapons at him, while the Major staggered over, broken wrist held tightly to her chest while Dorne fretted about it. “Victory for the Republic!” That cry served to summon dozens of Selkath guards from nowhere; and judging by the mood of the crowd, it seemed as if the ploy had worked. They really believed she was Imperius.

 


	26. “There is no emotion, there is peace.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for all the help you’ve been,” Tal’shanri didn’t look up from where she was kneeling in meditation in the center of what would have almost passed for a luxury apartment. The only sign that it was meant as a cell was its lack of windows and single entrance. The Esh-kha simply inclined his head towards her in reply. That the Selkath guards had made no attempt to separate them had been a surprise; Tal’shanri had fully expected them to, and had previously briefed Theron on the forms that would extend immunity to her companion.

She had traveled with Hallow Voice for so long that it was easy for her to forget how predatory the Esh-kha could be — and to underappreciate how much restraint this one had showed so far. They could both sense the impending storm from their shared dream, and under his impassive exterior, Tal’shanri knew his killer instincts were itching against his skin; held in perfect tension against his loyalty to her. “Sky Hunter spoke; Bright Storm is rage. Dark Rage will consume you.”

The comment was especially curious because of its emphasis of the passage time. The Esh-kha understood events outside of linear time, and his making a point of listing past, present, and future had to mean something significant.

The Esh-kha walked over and put a clawed hand against her neck, and Tal’shanri noticed for the first time there was now only a thin grey line there, the discoloration completely gone. “The storm is within now. The whisperer sees. Soon the lost blade will complete your transformation; and release me to my path.”

Only an Esh-kha could have made Voss visions seem clear. At least the Voss had interpreters; although, the fact that he had given a second statement seemed like at least he was attempting to explain. Maybe if…

“See Sky Hunter.”

—

The woman with golden eyes was standing in a cloud of mist with her back turned, arms clapsed behind her with her eyes closed. “I’ve done all I can,” there was an unsparing coldness behind her words. “You can never go back to the Jedi Order Tal’shanri. They would have to kill you over what you’ve become.”

—

Tal’shanri recoiled in the dream which broke the connection in the real world. “There is no emotion, there is peace.” That was what she had said right after the vision of Master Syo too. She gritted her teeth, focusing on the words and repeated them again. “There is no emotion, there is peace.”

The force stubbornly remained elusive, and Tal’shanri took a slow deep breath, then another, and counted her heartbeats until her pulse had dropped back down from racing. “There is no emotion, there is peace.” The third time, the words came a little bit easier and the force flowed tepidly around her again. The esh-kha simply shook his head and laughed at her attempts.

From outside the door there was the sound of a scuffle. Tal’shanri broke from her meditation, and pulled a lash of force energy between her fingers, ready to counter any attack. The Esh-kha too tensed, eyes on her for guidance.

But this was all supposed to be part of the plan, one that Tal’shanri reminded herself, didn’t include attacking their ‘rescuer’.

The battle of the other side fell silent almost as quickly as it had started, and the door clicked open less then a minute from the sound of the first shot.


	27. "I am not filing any ‘diplomatic incident’ paperwork.”

“Kriff. You’re not Imperius. Sith Intelligence is such shit lately.” The woman who stood in the doorway didn’t seem to need more than a simgle glance to see through Tal’shanri’s disguise. “I asked them twice if they were sure that it was a Dashade with you because it sure didn’t sound like one in the initial reports — and instead of confirming the intel they sent the Spy Twins to fetch me from the middle of a job to come extricate some supposedly long dead big name Dark Lord that was kriffing stupid enough to get captured by—“

“How have you managed to have a mouth like that and not end up dead?”

The woman stopped ranting for a second and in a movement too fast for even Tal’shanri’s Force enhanced senses to detect the bounty hunter had raised her blaster and fired a shot at the Esh-kha. The blast bolt went right through his secondary heart. It obviously wasn’t intended as a kill shot, but the number of people that would have known that Esh-kha had two hearts was vanishingly small. The Esh-kha slowly slipped to his knees, not so much in pain so much as total shock about what had just happened.

“Next time you talk without my permission, I’ll kill him. Slowly. While you watch helplessly. Understood?”

Tal’shanri nodded.

“Now. Take off that ridiculous mask — and princess wanna-be-sith, I never ask for twice and I have places to be, so, I would do whatever I tell you to as I tell it you.”

Tal’shanri pulled the mask off, and a hostile silence settled between them as the bounty hunter made a sound of strangled frustration. “Krifffffff. Of all the people in the kriffing galaxy that could have been under that mask.” The woman sighed dramtically. “The kriffing Barsen’thor. Should have kriffing known it was you when the report came in that ‘Imperius’ was running around with so called a grey Dashade with a mane. Just. Kriff it. I gotta make a call.”

“Lana,” the woman’s voice changed instantly into a crisp professional tone with just a hint of a Mandalorian accent. “The rescue op for Darth Imperius, there’s been a major complication.”

Tal’shanri could only hear half the conversation, and briefly wondered about who could be on the other end. The bounty hunter surely wouldn’t have been so formal for anybody less than a Darth.

“No. I didn’t kill her.” “It’s not Imperius.” “I mean that I worked for Imperius and the woman standing her is—“ “I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t somebody else there was a contract out for.” There was a longer pause where Tal’shanri could tell the bounty hunter hadn’t start out by mentioning that she had the Barsen’thor to her employer entirely for dramatic effect.

“I’ve got your dream woman.” Tal’shanri’s jaw dropped and she stared stupidly at the bounty hunter who had broken into peals of laughter at her reaction. “I am completely serious.” “I’m laughing at the Barsen’thor.” “Why? Because she’s blushing a darker shade then I knew Chiss could turn.” There was another long pause.

“That’s fee and a half.” “That’s double fee, and you tell the spy twins that next time I see them they owe me for the lost bounty.” The bounty hunter glanced at her armband display. “Forty minutes.” “For triple? Ten, but I am not filing any ‘diplomatic incident’ paperwork.”

The Bounty Hunter hung up the call at that and turned towards Tal’shanri. “You’re lucky I knew the price the dark council has on you is just bluster, but I really should have called their bluff on it just to see their faces. As it stands, the only reason we’re not on a shuttle to ascendency space is that Lana’s personal contract to bring you in alive for questioning won’t take ten kriffing years to process. As far as I’m concerned, you owe me big for not just holding an open auction on you.”

She tossed a syringe full of Kolto to the Esh-kha and gestured for them both to stand, “Get up, you’re part of Lana’s deal too. You’re both headed to meet Gorima.”


	28. “Good luck Jedi, and for the record, I hope you live.”

“I’m Jen’sul by the way, personal bounty hunter to the Dark Council, Grand Champion of the Great Hunt, so on and so forth. I have lots of titles these days.” It was somewhat surreal watching a bounty hunter who could talk, shoot with 100% accuracy, and run at the same time; and Jen’s reputation as the best in the galaxy suddenly didn’t seem the least bit exaggerated. “You seem the type to remember names.”

True to Jen’s word it did only take ten minutes to make the trip from the apartment to what looked like a submarine docking station. Ten minutes about probably eighty dead bodies that was. A good number of the dead appeared to be Selkath civilians who had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Most Jedi try to escape. You might be the first with enough common sense to both keep your mouth shut and not try anything.” Jen punched in a set of coordinates to a nearby terminal and the docking station turned a yellow color indicating the sub was on its way for pickup. “Not that you could have escaped, but I appreciate not having to haul your stunned-ass behind me. I might have missed my drop off window.”

Tal’shanri rolled her eyes, and Jen’sul laughed and patted Tal’shanri’s shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise. “You’ll have fifteen minutes in the sub to figure out how to get out of,” the bounty hunter gestured vaguely, “four sets of restraints? Ya. Four. Look, I’ll even turn off the stun setting so you have an eighth of a chance at surviving the lab.”

“Thanks,” at the word Jen’sul stopped and looked Tal’shanri, expression hidden behind her helmet, although Tal’shanri didn’t need to see the Bounty Hunter’s face to know that speaking had been a mistake.

“What did I just kriffing say about keeping your mouth shut? I should shoot your friend again just for that.”

The Esh-kha didn’t move, and Tal’shanri could tell it was taking all his concentration not to leap at Jen’sul’s throat and take his chances about her ability to kill him before he could kill her. The fury coming off him was palpable, and should have been even to a non-force user. But even next to the Esh-kha, Jen’sul still managed to give off the impression of being the Apex predator in the room.

“Maybe I’ll just cut off one his hands. That’s what I did to Heart Rend after I had him on his knees. Do you want to know how long it took until he begged for death?”

Jen’sul’s eyes stayed fixed on Tal’shanri as she talked, and she even turned her back to the Esh-kha before taking a predatory step forward towards the Jedi. “I took my time—“ The blinking of an incoming call from her armband interrupted.

“Yes.” “Yes.” “No.” “It’s your bounty.” “I am not responsible for what Kal—“ “Mhmm.”

There was a beep from the terminal as a small submersible surfaced, and Jen’sul gestured with one of blasters for them both to get in. Tal’shanri half expected the Esh-kha to balk at getting into such a tiny craft but he folded himself into the back with surprising dexterity; and left Tal’shanri enough room to sit somewhat comfortably.

Whoever was on the call with Jen’sul was delivering some sort of report because the bounty hunter fell silent. “Is that Sith Intelligence or your own?” “I’ll take care of it.”

Something else was obviously on her mind as true to her word Jen’sul disabled the security charge on the force cuffs before she reactivated the submersible with instructions to return to the lab. “The order of Shassa are the Lab’s security. if I were you I’d play dead until one of them comes to check the pod and then take whatever weapon they’re carrying and then run like hell. Once that alarm goes off, you’ll be looking at hundreds of guards.”

“Good luck Jedi, and for the record, I hope you live.” With that Jen’sul stuck the training dualsaber that had been part of her Imperius disguise to the side of the sub with a sticky grenade. “You owe me two favors now.”


	29. She was no longer the Jedi she once had been.

It took almost the full fifteen minutes for Tal’shanri to free herself of the four sets of force cuffs, with the ones around her ankles proving the most difficult to undo. The Force rushed back to greet her as soon as the last set was off, and coursed through her with more intensity than she had ever known it to take. The Esh-kha’s cuffs would have to be cut with lightsaber, and although he had been silent the whole trip so far, Tal’shanri could hear a sort of background sound coming from his racing thoughts.

How many years had he dreamed of this place? How many visions had he had of the heart of the ocean? Tal’shanri was again grateful for his company. Against an army of Selkath force users he would be an invaluable ally.

The sub docked, shedding water as it beeped twice to let her know it was safe to disembark. Tal’shanri made the split-second choice to not bother with Jen’sul’s advice, and instead immediately disembarked, grabbing the lightsaber stuck to the outside of the pod as she slashed through the Esh-kha’s cuffs. Once he was free, the esh-kha made a sound that she hadn’t heard since Belsavis, a low frequency rumble that cut to the bones, half warning, half war cry. It was a sound of terror, and back on Belsavis it had made her blood run cold and sent chills up her spine. Death always followed the sound. Always.

That sound should have still bothered her, yet it didn’t. Instead an electric thrill ran up her spine, and Tal’sharni felt her breath catch her throat and the force burn inside her in anticipation.

It hadn’t been that long ago that she had tried telling a dark council member to surrender his weapons and he would be unharmed. She had spent her entire time with the Jedi Order willing to sacrifice herself for even the prospect of a peaceful solution.

She was different now. Tal’shanri couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when she had changed, but it was undeniable that she was no longer the Jedi she once had been. ‘They would kill you over what you’ve become’. The words came back to her mind as she accepted the reality of her change, and this time Tal’shanri didn’t try and push the thought away by reciting the code. Instead she drew her weapon, and took a test swing, new hyper-intense connection to the force sending sparks along the blade with an overcharged hum.

The saber strangely felt far too light for her even though she had carried it for years with no issues; and she could feel a growing resistance from the crystal. The weapon would do for the moment however. “Let’s go.”

The lab was half empty. From Jen’sul’s description Tal’shanri had been expecting resistance from the moment the pod had docked; but she and the esh-kha made it four hallways in before an alarm sounded. Only then did the lab come alive.


	30. “Two to see Gorima, please. We’re expected.”

Every room in the lab was individually equipped with security droids; and after the droids had secured their initial room they poured into the main hallway, sweeping through the facility in an initial massive wave that would have overwhelmed most intruders. Jen’sul’s advice to wait suddenly made more sense. Had she listened and waited in the docking bay the droids would have been deactivated by the selkath guards and a non-issue.

But even with the numbers of a small army, they were still droids, and droids had never been a match for her. They melted under Tal’shanri’s lightsaber; the rapid pace and rhythm of combat a familiar mental exercise. There were no Sith Lords with their elaborate tricks and traps to avoid; just the force in her ear – first as whisper, then growing into a deafening roar of rage and sound – telling her right where to strike each droid, and exactly when and where she needed to be.

More and more droids flowed into the hallway, it almost felt like endless waves of them. But a voice was _screaming_ in her mind that it has been too long since she’s fought, really fought, and that she needs this; no, more than that she _wants_ this. This is who she is now. She pressed forward through the lab, vaporizing a dozen droids with a single blast of force energy; letting herself roar with the satisfaction of rage unleashed as the blast ricochets down the hallway.

She should feel the slow burn of exhaustion by now. Even when she had been diligent in her training, there were only so many times you could swing a saber before your shoulders ached and your muscles were sore. Tal’shanri knew she had passed that point where she should have been too exhausted to fight any longer. She had stopped even attempting to keep track of how many droids she had blasted after the number grew above ninety, but she felt _good_. More than good actually. She had never felt anything like this as Jedi, never known the force to be intoxicating the way it was right now, never felt a hunger like this before.

The flow of droids slowed to a trickle. Finally with a sizzle of metal the last one fell to the floor in a heap, and silence settled back over the lab. “Six-hundred-seventy-four.” The Esh-kha sounded awed. “Your skill honors my quest Warrior.”

That was an impossible number. Not for a single Jedi in one extended fight. She was not even out of breath, and if anything Tal’shanri felt the **need** to keep fighting. She **needed** more still, the hunger gnawed at her and demanded she keep going.

“You honor me as well,” Tal’shanri rubbed her temples against the worst of the noise in her mind and bowed to the Esh-kha a frown crossing her face. He was just under seven feet tall, she was just over six; and yet she was looking him directly in the eyes. That didn’t make sense. How had she gotten so much taller? She was still wearing the blood stained sith robes, and they were indeed too short all a sudden. When had that happened? She pushed the thought away. They’re still in danger. She still **needed** to fight.

Ahead there was a check in desk with a single selkath still dutifully at his post. He stared at the two of them as they approached, eyes wide with terror as if he can’t decide which of them he should be more afraid of, before deciding it was Tal’shanri and he looked like he might faint as she spoke, her voice a strange rasping sound, “Two to see Gorima, please. We’re expected.”

The desk attendant pushed a button and a door slid open behind him. “Third hallway on your right.”


	31. “Please Jedi, spare me!”

The door led to a waiting room lined with comfortable chairs and a faux-window with a lovely view of the surface along one wall. In the center, and flanked by two assassin droids, was a giant of a Selkath Warrior with his lightsaber pike at the ready as he locked eyes with her.

Tal’shanri started to issue her standard order to surrender but the words stuck in her throat. She didn’t exactly want to kill him, but she did want to fight him. No. She _needed_ to fight him. The force coursed through her again, clawing and snarling and in a form that she understood only as being primal and dangerous. Somewhere in a small corner of her mind she felt a tremor of horror at the realization that she was no longer capable of speaking in words he would understand.

With an inhuman snarl she leaped at the warrior, not letting him bring his weapon up and slamming into him with an impact that shattered four ribs on contact, and broke his leg on the follow through. She grabbed for his throat with one hand, nails digging into his skin and drawing blood as she slowly strangled the life from him.

Her saber grew hot against her side, she hadn’t drawn it before leaping at the warrior, the hilt warping and starting to destabilize with a shrieking, whistling, _dying_ sound. Shattering the Kyber Crystal inside a saber took either an act of true self-sacrifice, or prolonged exposure to a powerful dark side source. The Dark Heart on Voss had been enough to start the process of destabilizing in the crystal in her regular duelsaber, but there was nothing here that should have had anywhere near the same effect.

The Warrior dropped to his knees as one of the droids put a shield around him just before she could finish crushing his neck. Her hands slipped against the dim blue glow of an energy barrier as the Selkath coughed and choked, gasping for air. Tal’shanri reached for the droid with the force, and crushed it into scrap with a single thought. The other droid she flung to the side, the initial energy from the toss melting it into slag midair.

Shield down the warrior cowered on floor. He was beaten. “Please Jedi, spare me!” His words were pained, and he had to grasp his throat to keep from choking on blood as he begged. “That is your way is it not? I would not have killed you, only stopped you from interfering. There is no need for further—“

Pathetic. _Pathetic creature._ **Kill him.** **_KILL HIM._** Tal’shanri can’t tell which thoughts are her own anymore – but the power running through her, _stars_ , she wants more and more of it; and a deep insatiable hunger twists around in her skull threatening to overwhelm her mind with its need for control. She tried to laugh at the Selkath, but the sound that came out was a combination of a hiss and fangs clicking together, a monstrous sound, a sound that made the warrior scream in wide-eyed terror even as his voice was raw and tortured. Drawing her saber, she took in the moment, drinking in the hopeless helplessness in his eyes as he realized she really was going to kill him in cold blood. But, before she could plunge the blade through his heart, her lightsaber exploded.


	32. “Dark Rage consumed this place."

The force from the shattered crystal should have killed her. It vaporized the Selkath’s body completely, and the energy nova sent a shudder through the complex, knocking out power before the emergency generators kicked on after a brief blackout. All around her the furniture had been thrown every which way, and yet she didn’t have a single scratch. The explosion didn’t even knock her back.

The esh-kha whispered something in his untranslatable language with absolute reverential awe; and in that moment Tal’shanri couldn’t help but feel god like. Where had this feeling been her whole life? There was a gnawing hunger deep in her bones now, a _NEED_ to keep moving, keep fighting, keep killing until it was only her left.

She was beyond reason now, beyond understanding, beyond the limits of what she ever been told the force was capable of. There was some reason she was in the lab, but she couldn’t recall, a whole set of thoughts and memories growing hazier and hazier. She had been a Jedi once. Once. A long time ago. There was only the hunger now, the hunger and the power. No. She had never been anything else then the hunger. That had always been her. The other thoughts were the lie.

Tal’shanri was moving on pure instinct now. Six selkath with lightsabers approached, and shouted something at her, but all she could hear was roaring, roiling, burning in her bones. She moved faster than ever before, time seemed to have stopped around her, as despite the fact that she was unarmed she leaped towards them. She knew she could rip them to pieces, tear their throats out with her fangs, feel their screams through the force as they died with terror on their lips.

Claws — when did she get claws? She had always had claws right? Two realities overlapped for a second but Tal’shanri was done thinking, and the thought simply melted away — sliced through flesh. The Selkath were frozen, or maybe time really had stopped, but none of that mattered because she had already killed all six in just longer then the blink of an eye; and she kept going, kept killing, kept the hunger at bay as it fed on every terrified scream and whimper.

Finally a lull, and she reached to pick up a blood stained lightsaber pike, only to find she couldn’t grasp it. Claws stabbed the ground fruitlessly; but holding a lightsaber with knife-claws was impossible. But. She had just used a lightsaber. The claws couldn’t be real. Could they?

Who was she anymore?

Tal’shanri closed her eyes and tries to recall something, anything, about herself. Everything was hazy. She was two people, two beings really, at the same time.

One was soft; the other was _hungry_.

One roars, and **roars** , and _**ROARS**_ , a swelling wall of sound that shattered infinitely against all it touched; the other was a whisper, a whisper that was louder than the roaring as it spoke five words: “Take my hand. Trust me.”

At that the world lurched back into focus, and memories washed back into her mind like a tide returning. Hands, not claws, grasped one of the lightsabers; and Tal’shanri shook and convulsed as she gripped the cool metal and felt the claws, the teeth, the beast, recede back inside her. The crystal inside flickered and died instantly, saber useless as anything other than a connection to reality.

“Bright Storm!” The Esh-kha was out of breath and seemed to have been sprinting. But… Tal’shanri turned around slowly, very slowly. There were a lot of bodies. A lot of mutilated tortured bodies with blood splattered all the way to celling.

“I—“

The Esh-kha stayed silent, and she must have been regular size again because he was looking down at her. He seemed unsure how to react to any of this, and then in a soft voice, one she had never heard from any Esh-kha before he whispered, “Dark Rage consumed this place.”


	33. "She definitely got the sith dramaqueen gene."

Tal'shanri knew she should have felt something at the sight of so many dead. But there was no feeling at all, just a dull ache in the back of her mind and a creeping exhaustion. “Did we find what we were looking for at least?”

The Esh-kha shook his head, “Bright Storm,” he struggled to find words, trying not to speak in metaphors long enough to communicate something clearly important to him. “These were not warriors. Not your enemies. This was not the lab.”

Oh.

Oh no.

“How many—“

“All.”

The massive droid army hadn’t just been protecting the lab. It had been residential security too. There could have been over a thousand Selkath in a compound of this size. Tal’shanri turned in a slow circle, they were at the end of a long hallway in a circular observation room that offered a panoramic view out into the ocean. Even at the seafloor the water was clear blue and light dappled.

There was only one door into the room. That there were four bodies leaning against the door frame, all with stabbing claw wounds to their backs registered only partially. She must have chased a group into this room. Four dozen more bodies were spread across the blood slicked floor. She didn’t look at them as she walked by.

The door slid open at her approach; makeshift barricade on the other side partly deconstructed. When was it built? By who? Blood dripped down the side from several impaled selkath; they seemed to have been trying to keep her out at one point.

Somehow Tal’shanri knew the route back towards the lab.

There were no guards left even after she had passed through the explosion damaged waiting room into unfamiliar territory. A few empty rooms contained pristine operating tables, but there were no signs of what the lab’s real purpose might have been.

“Oh thank the Stars! Please, over here!” Tal’shanri followed the voice, shocked that anybody had survived, the passageway opening up into a holding area with a single human prisoner in a small cell.

“Who are you?” The woman didn’t immediately answer, and Tal’shanri glanced down at herself for the first time. The black robe was in tatters and she was covered in blood from head to toe. “I know what this must look like, but, I’m the Barsen’thor of the Jedi Order.”

The woman in cell debated if maybe staying locked up in a cell might have been preferable to dealing with somebody clearly insane, but after a second decided she valued her freedom. “I’m Kal. Kal’tyral, Republic Privateer extraordinaire.”

“The bottom of the ocean sure is a funny place for a Privateer to end up.”

“I was actually conducting a 100% legitimate real estate deal when I just happened to overhear a conversation I shouldn’t have. You’d be surprised at how often that seems to happen to me.” Kal seemed to have shaken off her misgivings about Tal’shanri’s appearance and launched into the story with gusto. “Imperial Intelligence is, well, a word that I imagine would offend your sensibilities Master Jedi, and they were supposed to nab this guy I was making the deal with but didn’t show! They’d have arrested a wanted criminal, and I could have walked out with the deed to a nice condo with beach front walk up. Wholly legitimate deal — for me.” Kal grinned disarmingly before continuing.

“Turns out some there was some crisis about a long dead Dark Lord showing up. Not /my/ problem, anyway. I’m waiting on my backup and Darth Arkous just happens to walk by and just happens to recognize me. He and I, well, he’s not exactly a fan of my partner you see and I guess he figured he’d just turn me into a bargaining chip and that the last place she would ever think to look was the middle of the ocean. He’s probably right about that. Jen really doesn’t understand Sith humor sometimes, although she definitely got the sith dramaqueen gene. Now, uh, how about you let me out of here?”

“No.”


	34. "The Imperial Fleet bombs whole planets over that sort of thing!”

“Did you just say no? Wait, then who the kriff are you actually? There are no Chiss Sith Lords. The Ascendency wouldn’t tolerate it. You’re carrying a lightsaber, so I mean you pretty much /have/ to be The Barsen’thor. I don’t need to know much about Jedi to know that it’s in your handbook that you have to free people like me! You can’t just leave me down here!”

Tal’shanri turned around and shrugged. “I can’t say I agree with Darth Arkous about, well anything, but I’m not exactly inclined to do any favors for a certain bounty hunter.”

Kal blanched. “Jen kills a lot of people It’s never personal. She—“

"Never personal?" Tal’shanri snarled and hit the force sheild with her broken lightsaber sending sparks out and Kal scrambling to make herself as small as possible in the opposite corner. The saber hilt shrieked in protest, both at being used as a bludgeon against a force shield and against the dark side. The force shield started to buckle, wobbling and flickering before collapsing under pressure from the saber strike.

 “If you kill me, Jen won’t rest until she’s killed everybody you love; and maybe then she’ll kill you — but maybe she’ll just keep killing anybody you love instead, and then she’ll move onto killing everybody you talk to. She’ll keep hunting you, staying just behind you; never getting too close but always close enough, she’ll make it so people run from your shadow. She’ll keep killing people until there’s not a dingy cantina at the farthest corner of the galaxy where everybody wouldn’t run from you. Then, then as you roam the galaxy alone save your guilt, she’ll find you in middle of the night, alone, and then she’ll kill you. Slowly. Agonizingly. She’ll take days to do it, make you beg for death, bring you to edge and back again over and over again until you’ve forgotten what it means to even be alive.” Even cornered and facing down a snarling Jedi Kal was trying to talk her way out of things.

It wasn't the threat that prevented Tal’shanri from killing Kal in that moment of rage so much as sheer dumb Smuggler’s luck. The only weapon she had was the dead lightsaber. Burning through lightsabers was going to become a problem very quickly. Even the synthetic Sith lightsabers were prone to burnout and the idea of not having a weapon mid battle sent a shudder up Tal’shanri’s spine. Finding a working weapon presented a rather immediate problem.

Tal’shanri took a step back, and a deep calming breath. “I’m not going to kill you. You’re right. There's no need for such dramatic threats. It wouldn’t be the Jedi way to leave you.” It was a reluctant truth to admit, and Tal’shanri grimaced slightly. “I just need something from you before I free you.” She paused and added with a sigh, “I’m sorry if that frightened you. I don’t know how to disable the lock out on the computer systems — that’s what I need you for.”

Kal looked skeptical. “That’s it? No ‘you owe me later’ life debts?”

“After we get out of here, I really hope we never meet again. I want to find a nice backwater planet and spend the rest of my life ignoring the galaxy.”

It only took Kal two minutes to disable the internal security lock out, doors to the room ahead hissing open with a sound of depressurization.  “I’ll wait right here with your horse-y friend and work on getting a submersible while you do whatever else it is you came here for. There’s an outside security lockout on travel to this base with a clearance level I’ve never seen actually used before,” Kal stopped typing and turned to look at Tal’shanri with wide eyes, glancing back at the screen to make sure she hadn’t misread it. “No. No way. That can’t be what you’re here for.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This lockdown code, the explanation on it is: ‘Sith Alchemy Experiment Loose’. Kriff Jedi, The Imperial Fleet bombs whole planets over that sort of thing. The Jedi should have sent an army, not one person!”


	35. Not that unkillable cyborgs were particularly preferable

“That’s what I’m here to stop?” Kal looked relieved even though Tal’shanri’s reply was a rhetorical question not a statement. “I stopped Rakata technology super soldiers on Tatooine. The men I were chasing, Colonel Darok and Darth Arkous, they must have activated a Rakata device and triggered an automatic orbital sensor net of some sort that can’t tell the two apart.”

“That… makes some sense. Let me see if I can get a comm line out to the surface. Somebody up there might know what’s going on. Give me a few minutes, I still have to bypass the override. Maybe see if you can’t wash at least some of the blood off yourself in the meantime?”

Given that they both were equally trapped by a full facility lock out, Tal’shanri nodded at Kal’s plan. The operating rooms she had passed coming in would need refreshers for sterilizing equipment and would work as wash basins “Keep an eye on Kal,” the Esh-kha nodded at the command. “We’ll find your name. I promise.”

A quick search of the cupboards under the refresher in the first lab room she came to even revealed a Selkath tunic. It was a rather garish shade of sherbet orange, but it was clean, and not in tatters. Given the state of her current outfit Tal’shanri would have considered turning a set of linens into a wrap dress over keeping the Sith Robes any longer had she not found the tunic.

Scrubbing the blood off her arms proved slightly easier than expected. There was probably something special in the soap given the lab setting. Getting out of the Sith Robes was more of a challenge. Theron had done an excellent job with the knots, and even tattered as they were the robes proved a pain to wriggle out of. Tal’shanri ended up just cutting herself free with the help of medical scissors.

Rebraiding her hair would take too long, and there was nowhere to properly wash the blood of out of it anyway, instead she tied it into a messy bun. When she looked in the mirror Tal’shanri smiled at her own reflection. She looked more exhausted than normal, and the scar on her neck still caught her eye every time, but otherwise she looked the same Jedi as she always had.

She almost went to try and find a saber that might work for her, but she knew there was almost no chance any of the Selkath had Sith crystals that would hold up to the darkness within her.

Sith Alchemy. Was that what had happened to her? How?

That couldn’t be true. Nobody had seen a Sith Alchemy beast in over a thousand years. They were the stuff of legends, not real. This whole thing had to just a false alarm over Rakata technology. Not that unkillable cyborgs were particularly preferable to unkillable rage beasts.

Kal had the comm line up by the time she walked back into the holding area, a full holographic link by the looks of it.

“Well, you really must be the Barsen’thor. The list of people who have ultra-priority clearance and need to talk to you right this second is about a mile long. T. Shan ring any bells? Either way, that’s who you’re going to take first because, whoever they are, they’re a better slicer then me and you’ll have to convince them to help if we have any hope of breaking the lock down.”

With that Kal patched Theron through.

 


	36. "I feel their terror. I hear their screams."

Theron looked awful, and there was the sound of blaster fire in the background. “Stay where you are Barsen’thor. It’s — shooting war on the surface — Havoc — STAY THERE — Arkous — rumors — not your fault —“ the signal cut out on his end.

“Jen’s comm is off, even her emergency line. I tried her first obviously. She only turns the emergency line off if she’s dealing with a full scale tactical assault.” Kal doesn’t say anything for a solid thirty seconds. “I hope she’s not on the opposite side from your friends.”

“I hope so too.” And with that it wasn't like Tal'shanri and Kal were friends exactly, but they weren’t enemies anymore either.

“Let me try Lana. She was in orbit and if I can get a signal through, she won’t be affected by any fighting on the ground.”

“I don’t know if—“ but Kal had already punched in the codes for the uplink to Lana -- the video link flickered several times, and the audio patched in and out in static-y bursts before it cleared up enough for the audio transmission to appear to be working both ways; although there was too much interference to hold the visual link.

“You’re you again I see,” Lana sounded exhausted, “Although, I suppose that’s not fair of me. You probably don’t remember ever not being you.”

“I remember it was you who brought me back. You whispered the same line from the dream, and I stopped being two people. I think I must owe you my life.”

There was a pause where Lana seemed to be choosing her words extremely carefully. “Do you remember anything about what happened to the Selkath?”

“Yes.”

“How much.”

“I see their faces when I close my eyes. I feel their terror. I hear their screams. I know I did it. I know I could do it again too.”

“Are you any danger to Kal’tryal?”

“No.”

“Then stay right where you are. I can fix this, but, there might be a minor complication for you.”

Lana cut out.

“I’ll wipe the security footage of whatever it is you did,” Kal pressed a few buttons and a still frame of Tal’shanri disembarking the pod popped up. “Lana is going to ask me to anyway, but, before I do – do you want to tell me the truth about what you’re doing down here?”

Tal’shanri closed her eyes and sighed, slipping to the floor and leaning against a bank of computer terminals before answering, “It’s a long story. Seeing as we’ll be here for a while, I suppose it can’t hurt to tell you.”


	37. "You really do need to get away from the rest galaxy for a while.”

“Look, I know me telling you this won’t help, but even after all that you’re not Jen by any stretch. You still have a conscious. I mean I don’t think Jen ever had a conscious in the first place, but you, you’re not like that," Kal shook her head slowly. "You’re still the Barsen’thor of the Jedi Order. They can fix you. Right?”

Tal’shanri shook her head and glanced over at Kal who had joined her sitting on the floor while they talked. “My Master, Master Syo, he spent his whole life with a fragment of the Sith Emperor in his head. He was on the Jedi Council, lived an exemplary life, until one day, just like that he wasn’t Master Syo anymore. He was The First Son. He, well, he killed a lot of people as The First Son. He almost destroyed the Republic on Corelia. I stopped him, reminded him who he was; and drove the fragment of the Sith Emperor from this mind.”

Tal’shanri smiled sadly, “But he was never the same afterwards. The best healers on Tython couldn’t help him — he went into exile on the outer-rim. His own inner turmoil over what he had done was too much for him to bare.”

“Being a Jedi, you’re asked to be two contradictory things at once: warrior and peacemaker. To fight and kill Sith, yes, but also to ask those same Sith to surrender with the assumption that it’s even possible for us to coexist someday. That’s what I was doing when I got this,” Tal’shanri gestured to the scar on her neck. “I really believed that I could convince a Sith Lord of the error of his ways, and surrendered my lightsaber.”

Kal’s eyes widened in surprise and she put a hand on Tal’shanri’s shoulder in a gesture of support, scooting over to sit closer and turning the gesture into a partial embrace. It was the type of thing that would have normally made Tal’shanri flinch uncomfortably, but she smiled thankfully at Kal before continuing. “It was a trap. The Sith Lord killed the Padawan of a fellow Jedi that I had been trying to save, then did this to me. It was luck I survived at all.”

There was a moment of silence between them, and Kal pulled Tal’shanri the rest of the way into a half hug; wrapping both her arms around the Jedi’s shoulders and holding her tight. “I’ll help you find that deserted planet once we get out of here, you really do need to get away from the rest galaxy for a while.”


	38. "You, of course, can tell him the truth if you wish."

The computer pinged, incoming audio only. Theron’s voice was on the other end. “Your friend the Sith Lord and I have broken the lab’s security lockdown. The good news is there’s a pod coming for you in twenty minutes — the bad news is there’s also a Rakata Cyborg warrior headed your way. These readings from Lana are showing it trashing the residential sector pretty badly, I’m sure the Selkath would appreciate it if you could protect their people—Hey! I told you!”

Jen’sul’s voice came on after a scuffle that sounded suspiciously like it ended with her punching Theron in the nose. “Your Republic spy boy tells me Kal is down there with you. You don’t let that whatever Cyborg anywhere near her!”

Theron’s voice came back again, this time in a low slightly pained whisper, “If anything has happened to whoever this Kal person you should probably just stay down there. I’m nearly 100% sure that Jen’sul hasn’t killed everybody in the hideout entirely because—“

“Lana’s orders. I’m not being paid enough for having to pass up killing Havoc Squad either!”

The transmission was cut off and a hologram from Lana came through. Kal stood up in a flash and took several steps back to be out if the visual frame. “I wouldn’t normally have been quite so bold as to contact Theron, but, I couldn’t have broken the lockdown without his help. We had to deal with both Imperial and Republic encryption protocols,” a smile briefly flickered across Lana’s face, and for some reason Tal’shanri didn’t exactly understand she felt her heart skip two beats at the sight. “The Imperial ones, of course, were much more of a challenge to break.”

Lana locked eyes with Tal’shanri – and the Jedi could feel a blush creeping across her cheeks at finally seeing the woman she’d been dreaming about for so long. “I misled Theron about your involvement with what happened in the residential area. You, of course, can tell him the truth if you wish — but, I would ask that you wait until after you’re off world to do so.”

Tal’shanri nodded, and pushed herself up into a standing position, taking a moment to consider her reply, and suppressing the ridiculous impulse to comment on how fascinating Lana’s eyes were even as a hologram. “I think it wise that the truth about what happened here remains between us.” It was almost unthinkable leverage to give a Sith Lord she’s never actually met over her, and off camera she noticed Kal’s eyes narrowing and lingering on her flushed cheeks, before a very particular type of grin came over the smuggler’s face.

“I,” there was a brief pause where Lana seemed surprised not just at the reply but at just how much she was making Tal’shanri blush, and the corners of Lana’s mouth twitched ever so slightly as the Sith avoided laughing. “It’s good to see you’re not quite as ridged a Jedi as I had been led to believe. We’ll have to meet in person once you’re free of the lab.” Kal picked up instantly on the hint of flirtation in the comment and grinned, raising her eyebrows suggestively at Tal’shanri, who, was completely obvious to all of it.

“So is there really a Rakata cyborg down here with us?” Kal rolled her eyes and face-palmed at Tal’shanri’s cluelessness.

“Yes, and unfortunately it’s between you and the pod bay. You’ll almost certainly have to kill it to escape. Its power is, also unfortunately, considerable. But you’ve handled far worse than a single cyborg warrior as Barsen’thor I’m sure,” Lana emphasized 'handled far worse' with a slightly sultry edge to her voice – and Kal stared at Tal’shanri intently, silently willing the Jedi to pick up on cue and flirt back.

Tal’shanri didn’t, of course, her only thought that telling Lana about the how lightsabers kept exploding around her didn’t feel wise and she simply nodded without saying anything, although she did shoot Kal a confused look wordlessly inquiring as to the reason for the Smuggler's intense stare.

“I’m patched into the lab’s security and comm system so I’ll be able to track you until you’re safely away from the lab.” Lana didn’t bother to try flirting a third time and instead simply ended the call with, “May the force ever serve you Barsen’thor.”


	39. “Do they really not teach you anything like /at all/ about flirting?”

“Listen, Jedi, you are an idiot.” Kal shook her head with a dramatic sigh. “Do they really not teach you anything like /at all/ about flirting?”

“Jedi are not allowed to have any—“

Kal snorted and rolled her eyes before she realized Tal’shanri was being serious. “Wait. So they really don’t teach you /anything/? Kriff. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on Corso, at least he knew where things were supposed to go even if he was—“

“They do teach us that.” Tal’shanri held up a hand to stop Kal before the conversation could go somewhere she was not interested in hearing about. “Jedi do not believe in ignorance, and that includes ignorance of biology.”

“So, just they just promote ignorance about how you get to the /biology/ part of things? Is that it?”

“Apparently,” Tal’shanri normally wouldn’t have conceded that point so easily, but Kal was right. Certainly she had been aware of it when Felix had flirted with her, and she knew full well that what had happened with Theron in the closet had crossed over into the flirting territory; but, with Lana it was different in a way she didn’t know how to explain. “Look, you’re right. I am an idiot. I only know how to tell people no, I don’t have the first clue how to say yes.”

Kal nodded sympathetically at that and in a low conspiratorial voice said, “Sore subject I see. Good thing you don’t really have to worry about it since it’s not like you’re really considering leaving The Order over some flushed cheeks for a Sith Lord.”

There was an awkward silence where Tal’shanri didn’t exactly know how to answer that. There weren’t two competing voices in her mind on this, only a whisper that said ‘yes’ she really was considering breaking the Jedi Code about not having any attachments, if not exactly considering leaving The Order. Seeing Lana standing there, even as a hologram, it had made the dreams feel so much more real. It wasn’t what she felt for Lana that was in doubt, only the words to express it. “I’m going to go check and see if there’s any thermal detonators we might be able to use – I’ll be back shortly.”

“Grenades? Is that really your plan to kill this unkillable cyborg?” Kal jogged after Tal’shanri who had turned and headed back towards the residential area in her quest for a moment of headspace. “And, uh, isn't it back the other way?”

“There was a weapons locker,” Tal’shanri rubbed her neck scar and had to keep from shouting at Kal to stop talking and let her think. “Not everything that happened here is clear to me.” The hazy memories Tal’shanri had weren’t much to go on, and she stopped just before they passed into the residential section. “Watch your step.”

“Watch my step for what?” Tal’shanri just stepped to the side to let Kal take a look. The floor was still slick with blood, it had started to dry but the high humidity levels in the lab have had so far impeded the process. Almost all the bodies had been thrown at least some distance at some point, and the blood spatters extended to the ceiling, the occasional dripping sound echoing through the corridor.

Tal’shanri stepped lightly through the mess of blood and twisted limbs, and the Esh-kha moved with a similar grace. Kal just stared uncomfortably at the ceiling, “Can I just, wait here?”

“I’m sorry, of course you can. I didn’t realize you were—“ Tal’shanri didn’t say squeamish, because this was beyond that. “—not used to seeing this sort of thing given Jen—”

“Jen is NOT a monster!” There was actual bite and snarl to the rejoinder although Kal realized about a second too late that that had been a terrible choice of words and immediately added, “Kriff! I didn’t, well I mean, you kinda were a monster when you did this.”

Tal’shanri clinched her jaw and counted backwards from ten before she replied, “I'll be back with those detonators.”


	40. "I don’t trust you not to think a dream is the answer.”

The weapons locker was, thankfully, still partly stocked. The whole crate of thermal detonators Tal’shanri had thought she had seen was missing, but there hadn’t been any signs of them having been used. Strange. She rummaged around hoping to find at least one that had rolled out of the box, and after a brief search found a smuggler’s belt that she was almost positive was Kal’s. Meanwhile, the Esh-kha strapped gun after gun to himself. He had stayed silent since they had run into Kal, not that Tal’shanri could blame him for that.

“I will be the first in a thousand generations to kill our ancient enemy,” the esh-kha looked up from his massive stash of weapons with a glint in his eyes as he spoke. “This pleases me immensely Bright Storm.”

“I’d ask for your advice, on how we should approach this fight but, no offense I’ve had enough out of body experiences for one day and I don’t trust you not to think a dream is the answer.”

The Esh-kha laughed. “The blood of the ancient enemy calls to me, there are no more dreams.” There was an intensity in his beady eyes that was both worrisome and reassuring at the same time. He turned and exited the room, Tal’shanri assumed to head back. She still hadn’t found a weapon for herself; none of the lightsabers she had picked off the corpses would even turn on for her.

At the very least Tal’shanri knew she needed a Force Focus. It was too much a risk to draw the required force energy for combat without a counterbalance to keep her grounded in reality. The seduction of just how much raw power she had had pulled at the back of her mind; what was a sense of self compared to transcendence?

“Kal is quite a handful isn’t she?” Tal’shanri jumped slightly at Lana’s voice, surprised at her own twitchy reaction given how often Holiday used to do the exact same thing. “I have an audio feed so I can hear you if you reply,” Lana added, stifling a laugh, after a moment where Tal’shanri nodded in an exaggeratedly enthusiastic manner.

“I’m not sure what I think of her,” Tal’shanri gave up looking through the weapons locker with only a vibroblade to show for it. It was too light on the test swing, but it was better than nothing. “Being The Barsen’thor, I’ve gotten used to people watching what they say around me. It’s, different, having Kal speak her mind so openly.”

Lana actually laughed at that, and Tal’shanri again felt her heart skip two beats as a dark blush crept across her cheeks. She couldn't recall ever having heard Lana laugh before. In all of her dreams the other woman had always been serious. It wasn’t a Sith-y cackle laugh either, but a real personable laugh. The echo of a touch of sweetness was gone in a moment, replaced by sincere curiosity in Lana’s next statement, “You never answered Kal’s question. Are you considering leaving The Order?”

The dream flashed to her mind again, and Tal’shanri wondered if Lana had seen it too. Just how many of their dreams had been shared? The silence stretched as Tal’shanri debated what she wanted to say. “I may not have a choice after today.” It was a dodge of an answer and not the one she suspected Lana had wanted to hear. “But," Tal'shanri let the word hang for a moment before she continued. "Whatever happens with The Order and I, I know you have a role still to play in my life.” There was more she wanted to say, but, not there and not just then. There was still a cyborg to fight after all.


	41. “The storm at the heart of the sea never was just one thing was it?”

“I’ll do what I can to ensure you can stay in The Order if you want,” Lana’s voice followed Tal’shanri as she started to head back towards where Kal was waiting, before acting on instinct, she turned to follow the Esh-kha’s bloody footprints instead. There was a tug from the force that way, something familiar, something she hadn’t felt since joining The Order and yet deeply familiar. “But, I’ve sensed the same thing, that we’re deeply connected. More connected then the Order would—“

Lana’s signal dropped as Tal’shanri passed through a vaulted security door she had never seen before. This must have been where the Esh-kha had been when she had lost control. The Selkath bodies in this area had all been killed by gunfire, not claws and teeth, and there were several more layers of security doors that had been disabled instead of smashed. It almost looked like she had passed into a museum; why would the esh-kha lead her here?

A moment later she got her answer: there in a glass case hanging on the wall was a sword. To almost anybody else it would have been nondescript, a ceremonial two handed double-blade with a slight curve in it. But even from across the room Tal’shanri could feel it singing to her: a song of ice and struggle; of blizzards moving like hurricanes; of the depths of the cold forges where metals shattered at the softest touch; of the dead that had held the blade aloft against the dim horizons and stained it with thick green blood; and of the cold of space. It told her in an instant of a journey yet to come too; a glimpse into its own future, a whisper of the blood it intended for her to use it to spill.

“The storm at the heart of the sea never was just one thing was it?” It was a rhetorical question, and the Esh-Kha nodded wordlessly, waiting to see what she would do. The weapon was ancient, from a time even before her protosaber, from when neither Jedi or Sith had existed — although it remembered them both. The blade had been old when both sides had fought using swords tipped with the force, a form of mastery long thought lost to the ages, but the sword remembered. It whispered it would teach her again; and the darkness in her hungered after it immediately; wanting, needing, aching, lusting after a new form of power that it seemed to know intimately.

The glass case melted under her touch, burned away by dark force energy that rolled off the blade in waves. It felt like an extension of her body from the moment she touched it, but no, not quite – it was more that she was there as an extension of it, not the other way around.

It wordlessly sang to her again; a new sharp edged presence in her mind.

Tal’shanri smiled predatorily, and spun the blade in her hands. Two voices in her mind now ached for blood; one for the kill, the other for the fight; and in between them both, she wanted the victory.

 


	42. “It’s not a toy.”

Carrying the sword there was a new confidence in Tal’shanri’s stride, and she headed back towards the lab at a near sprint pace. She stopped just long enough to hand Kal her smuggler’s belt, and was in motion again in an instant; slowing down only enough for Kal to keep up at a dead sprint — which limited her ability to talk. They entered a partially flooded hallway with a set of huge durasteel doors ripped off their hinges that opened up to a courtyard where the Selkath Cyborg paced, guarding the escape pod.

“Provide supporting fire,” Tal’shanri knew what to do with a single glance; she could feel the sword vibrating in anticipation as it told her exactly where to strike the Cyborg to kill it with a single blow. The Esh-kha nodded at the instructions while Kal eyed the massive creature warily. Sensing Kal’s hesitation she added, “I’ll keep it’s attention on me using the force if I have to, but the longer this fight drags and the more I have to draw on the force, the more risk you have that I can’t keep control.”

“You’re seriously going to fight that thing, with what even is that, a toy sword?”

There were three united mental voices that all wanted to stab the smuggler for that, and Tal’shanri gritted her teeth hard. “It’s not a toy.”

“I’d feel much better about us probably getting killed if you had a lightsaber,” Tal’shanri debated how much she really needed Kal’s help for this and didn’t like her odds either way. It was too risky to try to fight the cyborg alone, even with the Esh-kha at her side.

“I would feel better as well,” Lana’s voice came through the speakers, “You must have passed by plenty of discarded ones, didn’t you grab one when you were in that shielded storage room?”

Why was every little thing a debate? “I know what I’m doing—“

“You really don’t—“

“I don’t know—“

Tal’shanri swung the blade through the air in a fit of rage, and a wave of orange force lightning swept across the blade and arced straight into the cyborg who was stunned by the discharge. The sword glowed with a bright cyan edge, the same color as her attuned saberstaff had been, while orange lightning skittered across the surface and up Tal’shanri’s arms.

There was no choice but to follow through on attack she hadn’t entirely intended as the blade’s weight pulled her forward into a low roll and in the same fluid motion Tal’shanri executed an upward thrust right into the Selkath’s heart. It wailed in pain, died, and healed immediately; wailing in pain and dying again, reviving again in a cycle.

The cyborg’s death screams drew her rage to the surface, and this time Tal’shanri could feel it as the transformation started; her bones stretched, her muscles strengthened and her connection to the force sharpened and she could feel everything so much more intently. / _Stars_ / it felt so good to be in command of the force like this. The sword glowed even brighter cyan, and the orange force lightning running along the edge turned into a bolt of pure raw force energy that tossed the cyborg against a wall and melted its flesh into the durasteel behind it.

The creature had died so many times in such rapid succession that it was a disservice to consider it alive any more. Even half melted into the wall, the creature wasn’t dead enough for her. It wouldn’t be dead until she had ripped its still beating heart out and—


	43. "The whole lab is destabilizing and flooding!”

Getting hit with an electronet hurt but didn’t in the same instant.

What pulled her back was less the jolt of electricity so much as crash of a sheer wall of sound she had been tuning out. Kal was shouting; the Esh-kha was making a primal sounding war scream; the cyborg was screaming as it died over and over again; and alarm klaxons were blaring at full volume.

 “The fuck were you thinking!” Kal looked an interesting cross between absolutely red in the face furious, and sheet white in terror. “You shorted out the backup generators with that stunt! The whole lab is destabilizing and flooding!”

“Stay calm. There’s still time for you to trigger the manual override and activate the submersible,” Lana’s voice was remarkably calm considering the situation.

“The cyborg is still alive Lana! It’s not just going to stand there and let us leave!” Kal gestured wildly. “Tal’shanri melted it into a kriffing wall and it got back up! I don’t think it can be killed no matter what we do!”

“Ah. Well, I see why that would be a complication,” a hint of worry crept into Lana’s tone, but she was obviously forcing herself to keep calm enough to think rationally.

“Wait. Kal, maybe we can make it stand there and let us leave.” Tal’shanri’s skin was crawling and her voice sounded much deeper than normal. The Sith Beast inside wanted desperately to finish the job, and holding it in check was proving only somewhat successful. “We can vent the coolant in the temperature control unit and freeze it in place. We only need it disabled for thirty seconds right?”

“What? No! Was your last plan not suicidal enough for you? Venting the coolant will kill us right alongside the Cyborg when it causes an internal pressure failure,” Kal pointed at the overhead ducts and shook her head, “Those are structural supports not just ventilation.”

“Or you could leave the Esh-kha behind,” Lana didn't bother to lower her voice to avoid his over-hearing. “His would be an acceptable loss.”

Kal looked uncomfortable. “Lana…”

Tal’shanri looked at the Esh-kha. He was still holding the cyborg at bay with a steady stream of weapons fire. Nameless as he was, he has no value to the others in the clan; Hallow Voice would know, and the Patriarch had probably already foreseen this really, but the young esh-kha wouldn’t be missed.

A tiny voice in the back of her mind immediately asked why she was even considering that suggestion at all. The Esh-kha had been a friend and loyal protector to her this whole time, done everything she had asked of him; how could she possibly be considering leaving him? That was not the Jedi way.

“Is there any way he might survive if we leave him?” Tal’shanri had to ask, although she already knew what Lana was going to say. They were too deep underwater.

“No. And you have two minutes to figure something out before the lab floods and none of you will survive.”


	44. "I’ll remember that you trusted my judgement without hesitation."

"Let’s go Kal.” The smuggler didn’t need to be told twice and dashed towards the escape pod, yanking the emergency release hatch on the docking clamp and barely waiting for the pod to have cleared the surface before she hit the second emergency release on the pod itself.

Tal’shanri followed, not looking back at the Esh-kha. He didn’t notice them leaving. Or maybe he had seen them headed away and thought it part of a plan. Maybe he didn’t care either way so long as he had the chance to destroy something Rakata.

“This was the only way,” Lana’s voice was lowered this time, only meant for her. “I was expecting you to argue and that I would have to appeal to Kal’s sense of self-preservation. I’ll remember that you trusted my judgement without hesitation. I value that in an ally.” Lana emphasized the last word, and Tal’sharni could almost see the Sith’s smile. It was deeply reassuring to hear Lana say that, good to have confirmation of just what they actually were at this point.

Tal’shanri climbed into the pod just as Kal had finished inputting a docking sequence, and with the push of one final button the hatch hissed closed and the pod sank before the motor kicked in and propelled them upwards at a rapid clip.

“So, you and Lana.” If Kal had any particular issue with them having just left an ally to die she hid it well. “You figure out what you’re going to do about that in the last, oh, fifteen minutes?”

“Not exactly.”

Kal rolled her eyes, “Well you’re going to have to figure that out between here and the surface, because in all the time I’ve known Lana she’s never been quite as interested in anybody — and she’ll do whatever it takes to get what she wants.”

 


	45. "Manaan can actually be quite the restive place."

The sub pulled into a private docking bay with Imperial banners along the wall and three people standing there waiting. The instant the pod unlocked Jen’sul lifted Kal out of the sub and wrapped the smuggler in a bone crushing hug, not even bothering to acknowledge any of the other people in the room. “No more underwater labs Kal. I don’t know what to do with myself when I can’t solve problems with weapons.”

“Next time I’ll make sure it’s a pirate gang that I tangle with. You can solve everything by challenging them to a drinking contest.” They both laughed at the same moment, Jen’s deep and rumbling, and Kal’s a giggle.

“The spy twins still owe for that bounty Lana, don’t bother calling until that’s squared away.” Jen released the hug and swept Kal up into her arms to carry her and started towards the exit. “I’m serious this time, and I will shoot your messenger too.”

Theron seemed relieved when Jen and Kal were gone, and extended a hand down towards Tal’shanri. “I’m so sorry Barsen’thor, but it doesn’t look like there were any other survivors. Best we can tell there was an accident during evacuation that jammed the residential bay doors.” Tal’shanri managed to fake an anguished look at the false-news and Theron squeezed her hand, intending to be comforting. “I wanted to be the one to tell you. Darok and Arkous will pay for every last one of those deaths, I swear it!”

Theron wasn’t quite as a dramatic as Jen literally picking Kal up, but he did take the opportunity to pull her into a hug once both her feet were on the deck. “You really had me worried. This business about Sith Alchemy…” he shuddered and wrapped his arms tighter around her, and kissed her cheek softly.

Behind him Lana coughed and Theron’s expression shifted briefly into annoyance, although he did also seem to notice the way Tal’shanri had shifted ever so slightly away from him at the kiss. It was well within the realm of Jedi-ness, not an outright rejection, and he dropped his arms to his side and turned and gestured dramatically towards Lana. “This is Lana Beniko, Sith Lord and for the moment our new ally.”

“It’s good to finally meet you Barsen’thor. Theron was telling me all about you.” Lana kept her hands folded behind her back and there was no hint from her at all that they had ever met in any way before.

“Only the good bits of course,” Theron interjected with a laugh and a smile, trying to lighten up what must have seemed to him a particularly frosty first meeting. “Which is everything of course.”

“Right. So, as I was telling Theron, I've been tracking both Darok and Arkous since they left Manaan, and may have a lead on where they’re headed next. I believe that this lab was only a satellite for their main facility and that they intend to produce a Rakata army even more powerful than the galaxy has ever seen before,” Lana’s tone was all business, and she reached into her cloak for a datapad. “Even just a handful of these cyborg soldiers would be devastating.”

“We don’t have to move immediately on this intel do we? The Barsen’thor has been through—“

“I’m afraid we do Theron. Any time we give them before striking is time for them to build these cyborg soldiers. If we act now we may be able to stop them before they produce a single one.”

“You can’t just expect her to come off a mission like that and go right back into the field!” Theron almost never shouted, strong emotion only made it easier for a Sith to manipulate a situation, but his voice grew louder the second half that sentence and he put an arm around Tal’sharni protectively.

“Your Republic certainly did when they sent her straight to Tython from Korriban.” Lana’s voice was icy cold and even if Theron couldn’t see it, Tal’shanri could tell that there was a dangerous fury just under the calm exterior.

“I would have objected! The Order would have objected! We don’t treat our people like that! We actually care about them unlike —“

“Enough!” There was a crackle of force energy in Tal’shanri’s command, and they both stopped bickering and turned towards her. “I agree with Lana. I’ll head out as soon as you have a location.”

Theron looked genuinely wounded at that and took a step away from her. “Are you sure you’re up for this? We can find somebody else, the Major and her team are still planetside, I have other contacts in The Order—“

“Would taking Havoc along as backup be enough?” Tal’sharni was not exactly thrilled at the idea, but was willing to compromise if it meant the two of them stopped arguing.

Theron considered, “No, but it’s a start. I’ll take a start. At least agree to have dinner with the Major, Aric, and I to discuss strategy?”

The idea of chaperoning the hard drinking Major sounded perilously close to torture. Lo’nash had a sharp temper when sober, not a violent temper, but she had provoked more than one jedi master into something slightly above a rational argument. The odds of that going horribly, horribly, wrong were near 100% and Tal’shanri had already started to shake her head no, desperately trying to come up with literally any excuse to avoid that disaster when Lana interjected.

“You’re also welcome to join me in my nightly meditation. Manaan can actually be quite the restive place, assuming you avoid the secret underwater labs.”

“Meditation sounds wonderful.”


	46. “Don’t ‘agent shan’ me!"

 Theron looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry Tal’shanri, as nice as ‘meditation’ might sound I can’t leave you without a Republic escort.” He glared at Lana as he emphasized the word meditation with narrowed eyes. “The Selkath are up in arms over the whole fiasco; and given The Empire’s long standing immunity for Jen’sul — who turned half the city in a shooting gallery while you were gone — they want to blame somebody important enough to pay damages.”

“Get the ambassador on the line,” Theron continued to glare at Lana, until with a sigh the Sith Lord added, “Please.”

Theron didn’t seem pleased by the request but put the call through. Shuruu took one look at the three of them all in the same frame and collapsed to the ground in shock. There was a long pause where several other Selkath attempted to revive him before he finally came too. “Lord Beniko, Barsen’thor, Agent Shan. It’s ah. Quite the shock to see all you in the same place.”

Theron and Tal’shanri exchanged looks at that. The Selkath always addressed groups in rank order. It was a significant slight to have placed any Sith Lord ahead of a member of the Jedi council. The ambassador let out a panicked squeak as he realized he had caused offense, “No, no, offense meant Barsen’thor, Lord Beniko has rather significant investments here! And oh!” He looked like he wants to faint again and swayed alarmingly on his feet. “I—“

Lana narrowed her eyes into a particularly Sith-y expression of impatience and Shuuru fainted again. This time he was replaced by an older Selkath, a distant member of royal family from the looks of it. “My apologizes for the Republic Ambassador's incompetence Mistress Beniko. How may I be of assistance?”

“Release the Barsen’thor into my custody.” It was not a request. It was an imperious command; and an imperious command from a Sith Lord at that.

“Are you—“

“I am aware of your investigation. I won’t ask a second time.” The Selkath sighed and nodded at somebody on his end.

“And Agent Shan?”

“He is here on his own recognizance.”

“I see. Please inform him that he is dutifully being summoned to testify about the destruction of the Selkath colony,” there was a long pause and another reluctant sigh, “no charges are being filed against him, this is only for fact finding purposes.”

“I’ll inform him. Thank you for your cooperation and discretion in this matter.”

The call disconnected and Theron groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “Kriff, Lana. Testifying will be hours of paperwork. We don’t have time to deal with the damn Selkath and their forms in triplicate.” She just raised an eyebrow at him, but stayed completely stoic otherwise.

“Agent Shan, are you suggesting I should have interfered in a wholly legitimate Republic backed investigation just for your personal convenience?”

“Don’t ‘agent shan’ me, and ya, I am. It’s /paperwork/ not an investigation.” He made a rude gesture at Lana and sighed again. “They’re gonna make the Major fill out forms too aren’t they?”

“She’ll get her LT to do it. You’re the one who needs—“

“Can I make Holiday do it?” Theron looked over at Tal’shanri with a glint in his eye, “There’s no rules against that.”

“You’ll have to ask Tharan, AND you’ll have to convince her; I don’t know that it won’t be faster to just fill out the—“ Theron’s armband beeped and with a split second glance at it, Theron had taken off at a sprint, to solve some crisis no doubt, and Tal’shanri ended up finishing the statement to a void. “Forms yourself.”


	47. "A series of Kyber crystals, perhaps attached to a gauntlet of some sort."

 “I’m afraid this whole thing is at least partially my fault.” Lana waited until she heard the sound of the docking bay doors close behind Theron to start talking, and even now that they were alone still kept her distance. “Arzanon stole my research notes on applications of Sith Alchemy when we were in the Academy together. You were there the day it happened. A mirage.”

“I searched everywhere for them, and then forgot all about it assuming that another student had simply taken advantage of my work and presented it as their own. Nothing could be done about it in that case. It was purely theoretical knowledge, the type of thing that acolytes often worked on as gifts for minor Sith Lords. Nothing I thought had value beyond my own curiosity.”

“Sith alchemy is an esoteric subject even among the most academic of the Sith. Most dismiss it as legends, exaggerations that have just grown over the years — but I was always drawn to the tapestries that used to line the hallway leading to the Dark Council chambers. Such consistent depictions of the same type of creatures; and that despite gaps of a thousand years between some of the stories depicted…”

Tal’shanri simply let Lana talk, in part because she was exhausted — but also in part because the story was obviously meant as a confession of sorts, the type of thing that needed to be told all at once.

“I had always believed Sith alchemy tied to the Immortal Emperor — for academic reasons we need not go into at the moment — and had worked out a theory that should any individual show a connection to the Emperor it would be possible to exploit that link to release vast amounts of Force Energy. Magnitudes beyond anything we had ever seen before.”

“The process, did rather unfortunately seem to always be lethal; and I was never going to be in position of power great enough to test it on A Hand. Then, as you know, these so called Children of The Emperor started appearing everywhere. I had rather hoped to revisit my research, work with Darth Arkous permitting, with a living test subject. Imperial Intelligence even still had several Children still in custody, but without my original notes it would have taken months to recreate the process.”

“Inquisitor Arzanon was hardly my peer intellectually, but my notes were very thorough on the matter. It would have been a relatively simple matter for him to procure a subject and perform the ritual. He did, however, make a change that I had overlooked in pursuit of academic curiosity — he channeled the energy into an object. I assume it was a series of Kyber crystals, perhaps attached to a gauntlet of some sort? There are precious few materials in the galaxy capable of holding even a fraction of the Force Energy that would have been released, and only a linked serious of Kyber crystals could have come close.

“From what I've gathered from the paucity of records that survived Commander Jensyn’s senseless database destruction, I don’t believe Arzanon knew what he had. He seemed to use the glove as a Force Focus, and appeares to have believed it a common cursed Sith artifact.”

“A lesser Jedi would have been killed instantly by the strike. That even one as powerful as you survived is utterly remarkable. Soverus would have recognized this; and by all accounts he too failed to kill you with a blow that would have been lethal to all but the strongest Jedi. Your will to live is,” for the first time in her monologue Lana had to pause in search of a word, “Intriguing.”

“The presence in your mind, I can feel it just under the surface, a devouring consuming hunger. How do you stand it?” 


	48. “Nothing is dangerous to me anymore.”

“We have an agreement, it and I,” Tal’shanri took her time before answering. “Like now,” she closed her eyes, more for effect than out of need, she knew what it was saying clear as day. It was shouting at her that she _wanted _the Sith Lord standing just out of reach. Not that she was about to admit that. “Mmmmmm. Let’s see, it says that you’re much more powerful in the force then you let on. That it’s not Sith bluster when you mention your intelligence, that you’re dangerous, but not to me.” There was a flicker of a laugh on her face at that thought.__

____

____

“Nothing is dangerous to me anymore,” Tal’shanri resisted the impulse to grin and show sharp teeth. How far she could really take her new found power and still come back she didn’t know. There was probably a point of burn out, where the beast’s hunger would grow truly insatiable and wild beyond calling back and she would simply cease to be a separate conscious. Yet, despite the risks it had grown on her being able to draw from an unlimited power, giving it up even now that she know what it was, was unthinkable. In the back of her mind, a voice murmured that there was a cost to embracing an evil power like this, and the Esh-kha would only be the first on a long list of other people that would pay the price.

Lana had moved closer, close enough to put a hand on Tal’shanri’s waist, lower then Theron had; more aggressive. “You’ve been in my dreams for so long, I’d begun to doubt you were everything I imagined you’d be. And here you are in person, and you’re even more than that.” It was the type of compliment that would have been alluring even as a Jedi, and in that moment it was more than enough for Tal’shanri to slip from wanting to acting.

She pulled Lana towards her, fighting the tension between the fact that she _wanted_ this, that she was starved for this and had been starved for this for her whole life, and that there was a huge list of reasons why this was a terrible idea.

Lana slid her hand up to Tal’shanri’s back, her other hand on the Jedi’s shoulder, and stretched onto her toes to be tall enough to kiss her -- a gentle kiss on the cheek that was clearly meant as a flirty tease. “If only,” there was a longing to Lana’s murmured breathy words, one that promised future kisses that were _much_ more then soft teases, “but this isn’t the time or place for more than a single stolen kiss.”

 


	49. “Next time I’ll let Four-ex wake you with a rousing Patriotic March.”

Hallow Voice was gone from her ship when Tal’shanri returned; and in the back of her mind she briefly wondered if this was the first time she had ever been completely alone on her ship before she collapsed onto her bed into a deep, and mercifully dreamless, sleep.

—

“Barsen’thor,” she didn’t want to wake up. Not yet. It had been all of five minutes. The voice dropped to a low mutter and then tried again. “Tal’shanri?” She squeezed her eyes closed and silently willed the voices to go away. How did these people even get on her ship anyway?

Having a bucket full of ice cold salt water thrown on her was enough to force Tal’shanri to sit up and groggily stare at what looked like Major Lo'nash. Mercifully the rest of Havoc were waiting in the comm room and couldn’t see to laugh at the bedraggled Chiss. “Next time I’ll let Four-ex wake you with a rousing Patriotic March.”

“Slow down Major. Why are you on my ship?”

Lo’nash gave Tal’shanri a long sideways look, and then leaned in obnoxious close, “You don’t smell drunk,” she stuck her head around the corner, “DORNE, get in here.”

“Tell me what’s wrong with the Jedi so we can start the briefing in ten.” Elara gave an overly crisp salute and sat on the edge of the bed, rummaging around in her medical kit before she pulled out a scanner, and ran it over Tal’shanri.

“I have been awake less than two minutes and have no idea what’s going on. Let me at least wake up properly and I’ll be ready for that briefing in ten.”

Lieutenant Dorne didn’t say anything and snapped her medical kit closed again after putting the scanner back. “You’re in perfect health, but that’s not why the Major wanted me to examine you is it?”

“I have no idea why The Major—“

“You have a lipstick smudge in a dark Imperial red on your cheek, and you’re covered in blood. I rather imagine those two in combination might be what she’s worried about.” There was a terse moment where lieutenant Dorne really seemed to want to say something, and she finally did in a whispered hiss as she stood to leave. “I'd recognize that shade of lipstick anywhere -- Lana Beniko, _really?_ What were you thinking?” Dorne shook her head disgustedly before storming out.

Tal’shanri took a long deep breath, and centered herself in the force before reluctantly rising from bed. Everything on the ship was just where it should have been, and the mindlessly familiar routine of pulling on several layers of armor gave her a minute to process.

Right: the Priority mission to stop the production of more Cyborgs. Havoc Squad as backup.

A quick glance in the mirror and Tal’shanri couldn’t help but laugh and see just why the Major had been worried. She looked terrible, and as Dorne had pointed out, she still had blood all over her. She had forgotten all about having tied back her blood splattered hair, and had slept on it without bothering to wash it. Overnight her hair had turned into a tangled mane-esq fluff of black hair that fell in dramatic waves all around her shoulders with a neon green bloody sheen.

She could also see the hint of dark red lipstick on her cheek, and a pang of longing ran through her about yesterday. It was a horrible idea to get involved with a Sith Lord, but, yet…

Tal’shanri pushed the thought of Lana from her mind, and tried to focus. She knew that fixing her hair wouldn’t happen without something approaching a proper shower. At least being doused with a bucket of salt water had dampened it just enough that with the additional help of liberal handfuls of moose she managed a messy braid, and to look half way presentable for the briefing.


	50. "The Esh-kha don’t see time quite like we do."

“Eleven minutes and fourteen seconds,” Aric sighed at Dorne’s pronouncement and handed over his credit stick. “You have too much faith in the Jedi Lieutenant Jorgan. Proper military discipline is what will win us this war.”

The Major just rolled her eyes at their bickering turning the comm on, and Theron appeared after a brief pause. “Sorry about the wakeup call Barsen’thor.” He didn’t sound particularly sorry and it occurred to Tal'shanri that this was probably his version of payback for letting Lana stick him with paperwork. “As our ally stressed last night, we needed to leave without delay in order to head off Arkous and Darok. You should be arriving at—“

“Wait where’s Hallow Voice?” Tal’shanri interrupted, surprised that Theron would have thought her ok with leaving a teammate behind on such a critical mission. She wasn’t, however, surprised that they had managed to jump half way across the galaxy while she slept. Of course Tharan would have been able to remotely control the ship, and of course Theron would have used that to his advantage. The sharp edge to her words was less about any of that then the fact that Theron hadn’t considered the esh-kha important.

Theron seemed briefly taken aback, “He’s not on the ship? He was there when I sliced it,” the SIS agent stopped talking and typed something into a terminal, going silent for a solid two minutes while he looked through records of some sort. “I just checked security cameras, as far and I saw he never left your ship. I’m sorry, really, I didn’t know. Look, I’ll find him for you as soon as we finish this briefing.” Theron did actually sound sorry this time.

“Right, as I was saying, you should be arriving on Rakata Prime in just under an hour. Nasty place. Full of savage local tribes—“ Tal’shanri shook her head again and she could tell her interrupting was driving Havoc Squad crazy.

“As soon as you and,” Tal’shanri almost said Lana but caught herself, “our ally found the location of Rakata Prime Hallow Voice would have known and gone to summon all the Esh-kha clans. The Esh-kha don’t, er, see time quite like we do. They’ll be there with an army.”

“That’s not possible. You’re on one of the fastest small ships in the galaxy and we had you in hyperspace not even an hour after finding the coordinates. Nobody else outside of Darok and Arkous know about this planet.” Theron couldn’t keep the verbal version of an eye roll out of his voice at the thought. Not that Tal’shanri blamed him. It sounded crazy even to her.

“They’ll be there,” Tal’shanri almost added something about the will of The Force, but simply folded her arms behind her back and waited for Theron to continue. He in turn glanced at the Major who seemed skeptical.

“Right. Well, hopefully they are because it’ll be quite the fight up to the temple in the center of the island otherwise. They’ve got both missing Jedi and Sith artifacts in there, and a piece of the Star Forge.”


	51. "You will behave because it’s proper, not because I have to threaten you.”

 “Shit.” This time it was the Major who interrupted. “I told you we shouldn’t have let Revan live.” She was on her feet and Vik, Aric, and Elara were too. “Scramble the whole Republic Fleet, call Garza, tell her, tell her—“

“—tell her what that the SiS has been trailing an imposter for years? We didn’t just let Revan go you know. We have a 24/7 feed of him, and right now he’s eating lunch on Taris. It’s either him or the Empire has the best imposter in the galaxy because he sure talks a lot about himself to anybody who listens.”

The Major angrily swung a fist at the comm table, and at her outburst Tal’shanri was her feet ready with a force deflection that kept the Major from causing any damage. “Sit down Major.”

“Or what?”

Tal’shanri reached for a lightsaber that wasn’t there anymore. Grasping empty air she could hear the Major laugh as if from a great distance as the darkness inside snarled and threatened to rise to the surface. Not having a weapon didn’t mean she didn’t have the force, and she could see in a split second the exact flowing path of kicks and force lashes that would leave the four of them on the floor and Vik most likely dead.

From a room away she could feel the sword from Manaan vibrate despite her having wrapped and stowed it. If she called for it, it would be in her hand in an instant. But, no. She needed to stay calm. These were her allies.

“There is no or what. You are on my ship as guests. You will behave because it’s proper, not because I have to threaten you.” Resisting the instinct to fight left her feeling exhausted, more so than actually following through with fighting would have. At least, thankfully, the Major complied and sat down. “So, what’s this Star Forge?”

“Bad news,” Theron answered quickly, “ancient technology that could make anything out of nothing. Revan used it to nearly wipe out the Galaxy. We need to destroy it for good this time; maybe even more than we need to stop Darok and Arkous.”

“Speaking of which, the latest intel is that the two of them are probably going to be at the command center on the temple roof. Once you’ve subdued them, contact me from the comm terminal and I’ll send in evac. And there’s one last thing. There’s one more person joining your team, I don’t know who. I just got a coded message saying that our ally from Mannan would have some one waiting for you.” Theron clearly didn’t like not knowing who they might be meeting, but they needed all the allies possible for this to work. “Contact me again when you land. Theron out.”


	52. That lying was so easy surprised her.

“I will leave planning the specifics of our attack to you Major, your deception on Manaan was exemplary and I trust your judgement.” Lo’nash nodded and didn’t object as Tal’shanri left Havoc in the comm room to discuss possible assault routes. She needed to shower and The Major had always proved to be a brilliant, if not aggressive tactician. Without her final push against Imperial ground forces on Corelia the Empire could have easily forced a protected stalemate.

“Wait one thing first,” the Major jogged after her, “Just where is your lightsaber? I remember Ilum well, and you seemed to particularly rely on your cyan duelsaber, are you not any longer?” There was no judgement in her voice, and Tal’shanri could tell that the Major didn’t have the first clue about how much a taboo it was to ask what happened to a Jedi’s lightsaber.

“I’ve acquired a different weapon. I’ll be using that.” And then, impulsively and irrationally, she added, “Let me show you.”

Lo’nash followed her, curious no doubt about what weapon a Jedi would ever use over a lightsaber. Her eyes widened as Tal’shanri pulled out the sword from where she’d wrapped it and stowed it. It had stopped vibrating, but the second she touched the handle it glowed with a dim cyan light.

Tal’shanri could tell at once that Lo’nash could sense the blade’s power. Kal couldn’t. But the Major could, and she stared at the blade with growing look of horror before taking several steps back away from it. “That blade is,” she said something in Mirialan that was untranslatable, probably a proper noun. The Major realized after a second and tried to find a word in basic with no success and had to resort to explaining, “It’s an evil weapon. Don’t you feel it?”

“A weapon cannot be evil, only—“

“That one is. Watch,” Lo’nash took off her glove, and brought her hand towards the sword; and reflexively Tal’shanri pulled it away, her skin crawling at the thought of the Major touching it. “You’ve used it to kill haven’t you? It's bonded to you, you feel it's repulsion against letting somebody touch it who wouldn't kill with it.”

“I didn’t like people touching my lightsaber either. Aric doesn’t like anybody but you touching his sniper rifles.”

Lo’nash grimaced and rubbed her temples. “Right. I’ll just plan on you using the dark side sword to stab us all in the back then. Understood.” She looked pained about the sword despite the sarcasm. “Barsen’thor, there are a lot of people who will recognize that sword — maybe consider what that looks like for The Order before you start carrying it around in public.”

“I—“ Tal’shanri had a reply for that but the Major was already headed back to the comm room, “Look. My lightsaber exploded. I’ll have to make a new one, the sword it’s only temporary. You’re right.” Tal’shanri had never tried to lie like that before. Obfuscating to Theron about what had happened in the lab was one thing, but outright lying was another. That lying was so easy surprised her.

The Major stopped for a second but didn’t turn around. “Just be careful your new saber doesn't turn out red.”

 


	53. That was worth blushing over.

“Hi, I’m Ruzzu. Emperor’s Wrath,” Tal’shanri simply stared at the pureblooded Sith. His two apprentices, a human girl and a Torgruta, each had stunned two members of Havoc as they had disembarked although both apologized profusely for having to do so. It was probably the nicest Sith ambush in history. “I’m your new ally!”

He looked so pleased with his plan, and beamed at her with a disarming sincerity as he waited for her to shake his out stretched hand. Tal'shanri took his hand, and while shaking it said, “I’m Tal’shanri, Barsen’thor of The Jedi Order and this is Havoc Squad. Major Lo’nash, Lieutenant Jorgan, Lieutenant Dorne, and Just Vik.”

“Great! Good to meet you all! Jaesa, Ashara, you can let them go now.” The two apprentices dropped the force stuns and both Tal’shanri and Lo’nash immediately moved to disarm Elara. Lo’nash got there first and yanked the Lieutenant’s gun out of her hand.

“You can’t seriously expect me to agree to work with, with,” Dorne’s voice got higher and higher pitched until it was a shriek of pure indignation, “him!”

Ruzzu looked confused. “What have I done? Is there another him standing behind me?”

“Just, give the Major a minute.” Tal’shanri pulled the Sith aside to give Havoc space for one of their somewhat legendary shouting matches. “I’m sure she’ll convince Elara.”

Ruzzu smiled again, and Tal’shanri realized that he had striking light green eyes, and radiated a light side force energy that almost made him seem like he was glowing. There was not a trace of Dark Side corruption in his whole being. He could have fit in sitting in the council chambers on Tython.

He lowered his voice, “First, I wanted to apologize for putting a bounty on you. Soverus was a friend, and I didn’t realize it was Commander Jensyn who beheaded him. I thought I was going to do the galaxy a favor by removing a monster.” He looked worried as he added, “Beyond making sure you have my sincerest apologizes, before we headout, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Ruzzu waved for his two apprentices to stand guard and make sure they weren’t interrupted before he continued. “Lana told me that you may share my connection to The Power of the Emperor. She thinks I maybe one of two people in the galaxy capable of containing you if something goes catastrophically wrong. She was,” Ruzzu’s lips twitched into a smile, “about ready to murder one Agent Shan last time I spoke with her. Lana is very fond of you.”

He laughed in a slightly teasing manner at that admission and clapped her on the shoulder affectionately. “I think Lana’s intent is that with me here you don’t get into a situation in which you would be compromised and lose your position in the Jedi Order. She’s working on something she thinks maybe able to help.”

The blush on Tal’shanri’s face at his comment took Ruzzu aback, and the Sith raised his eyebrows questioningly. She didn’t care what he thought – because of the things Lana must have been thinking about, with the betrayal of her mentor Darth Arkous, not knowing who she could trust, having to deal with Theron and the Selkath, that Lana was doing even more work on top of that to try and help; that was worth blushing over.

“I wasn’t aware that you were fond of her as well. I thought the Jedi Order frowned upon such attachments?” Ruzzu paused to consider something and then asked, “Would you like a secondary line to the comm link I have with Lana? She won’t be able to hear you, but it might be helpful to hear what she has to say.” Tal’shanri nodded and handed him her earpiece to configure; he handed it back a moment later with a wink, “I know what it’s like to be in love with somebody the galaxy thinks is wrong for you, and, you and Lana, you deserve all the chances you can get to forge a future together. For now, though, consider yourself an honorary Imperial."


	54. "They will no doubt be excited to hear this latest bedtime story adventure."

Lo’nash stormed over just then and caught the wink. She pushed past his two apprentices to get right in Ruzzu’s face with a low threatening growl, “If you intend to flirt with—“

“I’m very happily married,” Ruzzu cut the Major off before she could work herself into even more of a shouting mood. “My wife Vette is the absolute love of my life. We have three adopted children that I intend to tuck into bed tonight; and who will no doubt be excited to hear this latest bedtime story adventure. I’m as close to retired as the Sith ever let you get.”

Lo’nash seethed but dropped the subject. “Elara has agreed to work with you and your apprentices, on one condition. She wants the Barsen’thor as her guard.”

Ruzzu laughed. “I promise Major Lo’nash, I will leave Lieutenant Dorne entirely alone.” The Major blinked for a second at the odd formality and then burst into laughter right alongside the Sith.

“Those aren’t titles. The Republic doesn’t do that. It’s just Lo’nash.”

“Ok Just Lo’nash.” The Major laughed again at his apparent confusion and gave up trying to correct it before turning and heading back towards the rest of her team, satisfied that he understood the condition of their alliance.

// Lord Wrath you know full well how the Republic Military does titles, you’re only encouraging her low opinion of Sith with your antics.

// She’ll find out soon enough the power I have as The Emperor’s Wrath. It was useful to diffuse her temper with humor.

“Pureblooded Sith are capable speaking with a vocal frequency other races cannot hear unassisted,” he offered by way of explanation. “The comm link is configured so that Lana can only selectively hear what’s going on. This special arrangement allows me the most flexibility on how I complete missions. Should I tell her you’re on the channel too?”

“Yes.”

// I’ve added the Barsen’thor to our comm line, listening only. We’re about to rejoin Havoc Squad and start heading towards the temple, do you have any instructions for her before then? I don’t know how patchy the comm line may get.

// Tal’shanri. I am going to strangle Theron next time I see him. I had intended to personally be there with you for this. Hold on. I’m getting some strange sensor readings. This can’t be right! How did you summon a whole army of Esh-kha?

“Did Lana just say esh-kha army?” Ruzzu tensed, and for a second Tal’shanri could see a similar power to the one she had coil inside him as he readied himself for combat. “I thought I had wiped them out on Belsavis.”

“Not the ones I helped the Republic find a new home world for. These Esh-kha are my allies.”


	55. "We’re just going to improvise this assault."

“I think you should go get everybody,” Tal’shanri whispered as it became obvious there were dozens of Esh-kha about to meet up with them. “They may be my allies, but they will kill anybody in their way.”

Ruzzu nodded and was gone in a flash. It only took him forty-five seconds to have everybody standing in a nervous huddle as they watched as close to a thousand Esh-kha warriors marched past.

“Bright Storm,” Hallow Voice had been at the back of the pack, and approached them only after the rest of the army was gone. “First Sword called for you in the moment of his death. He honored you well yes?”

Tal’shanri drew her blade and both the Major and Ruzzu recoiled from it. Hallow Voice put a clawed hand on the edge, black blood staining it before being absorbed into the metal. The esh-kha looked at her expectantly and she mirrored the gesture. “Listen to the whisperer Bright Storm. The shouting has begun.” His beady eyes glanced over the group lingering on The Major who looked like she wanted nothing more than to shoot him.

“We need to get to the temple at the center of the island, will your clan let us pass?”

Hallow Voice gave a horsey laugh, “You are here because you have always been here in this moment. My clan will leave the temple untouched,” his eyes swept back the other way over the group, “these will be safe nowhere else. Only the temple.”

“Understood.”

 Everybody was silent as they followed Hallow Voice. The Major was on a hair trigger, as were Aric and Elara. Vik hadn’t released his grip on a thermal detonator since being freed from the force stun. Ruzzu and his two apprentices seemed curiously nonplussed about following an esh-kha but even they all had their hands on their lightsabers.

They entered a clearing, and all at once the temple loomed before them. Hallow Voice melded back into the shadows silently, nodding at Tal’shanri in parting before heading to rejoin his clan in battle. Off in the distance sounds of fighting echoed but around them the jungle was silent.

“Do you want to explain how you made allies with the esh-kha?” Ruzzu asked gently.

“That. Would take longer then we have.”

“You did try to tell Theron about this, so, I’m just going to tell myself this was all part of a plan that nobody told us about,” The Major looked at her squad for confirmation.

“This isn’t even the strangest situation we’ve been in,” Aric added after a second, to snickers from Vik who seemed to have something particular in mind that might have been stranger. Elara just stared at Ruzzu, she had never stopped giving him poisonous looks despite the fact that true to her word she had managed to keep Tal’shanri between her at the Sith.

The Major ignored Elara and turned to Ruzzu. “Right, so, I didn’t know we’d have three extra people with lightsabers when I planned this. We’re just going to improvise this assault. You and your Pada—apprentices can take point, Havoc will provide suppressing fire and the Barsen’thor will take rear guard with Dorne.”

“An excellent tactical plan Just Major Lo’nash.”

// What do you think Lana, will that work?

// Yes. And Lord Wrath, thank you again for agreeing to this.

 


	56. "The Republic and The Empire can never co-exist!"

The Temple had more guards then Tal’shanri could believe were truly warranted. Most of them were droids, but there were a few native rakata, and a handful of regular cyborgs. Ruzzu moved like a blur, Ashara at his side with two sabers, with Jaesa using the force to occasionally hold an enemy in place while they moved through the first three levels of the temple at a breakneck pace. Havoc was providing support with the Major in the lead laying down suppressing fire and Aric and Vik both with sniper rifles out and picking off any enemies that attempted to flank them. They moved so smoothly as a group that there was almost nothing for Tal’shanri and Elara to do but hang back.

They cleared out four different labs full of rakata tech cyborgs nearing the final stages of completion during their sweep of the temple. Had they waited even a few more hours to start the assault the temple could have been crawling with the super soldiers. One of the labs in particular seemed to have been designed to produce cyborgs capable of powering personal energy shields for long periods, had one been activated it could have proved quite the fight.

// Lord Wrath, is there any chance you might be able to access a database and download their weapons research?

// No. The Major is keeping a close eye on me. The Barsen’thor might have a chance however.

Their sweep of the whole temple took just over two hours, and Tal’shanri didn’t need to draw her weapon once. She and Elara ended waiting away from the rest of the group while The Major and Ruzzu planned how to best make the final assault on the roof. The tight narrow maze like hallways made it impractical for everybody to stay too close together, and the Major had banished Elara after thirty seconds of her death glare.

“I met Lana’s family when I was still an Imperial.” Tal’shanri turned in surprise towards the Lieutenant. That connection made more sense how she had known the lipstick was Lana’s, but hearing the Republic officer talk about her former life as an Imperial still came as something of a surprise. “Her father made a fortune in the chemical business before he was killed on Quesh. He was a brilliant scientist, but prone to conducting experiments on living test subjects; especially when he could find Sith to bankroll his performances.”

“He invited the medical students from the Imperial Academy to attend one of his seminars while I was a student. He explained in great detail how the body metabolizes intravenously injected Kolto and how the location of the injection can make the difference between life and death given a mortal wound. As part of his seminar he demonstrated what could go wrong by taking a scalpel to a slave and—“

Elara flinched at the memory and had to steady herself, “demonstrated twice on the man. The first time what a successful application looked like, the second time what it looked like when things went horribly wrong. He did apologize afterwards for the blood that coated all the students in the front row, and graciously wrote me a note explaining to my next professor that I was late on his account.”

“He took an interest in my career and recommended me for the elite guard not too long before he was killed on Quesh actually. He was brilliant, willing to answer my questions about particularly obscure medical problems, and an absolutely devoted Patriot of the Empire who lavished money on convincing non-aligned worlds that the Empire was a place of prosperity. He was also a murdering psychopath who made trillions of credits creating better ways to kill people. He always spoke proudly of how much his daughter had taken after him; and about his dreams for a family dynasty with her as the future Minister of War.”

“Lana will show you her true colors soon enough.” Elara’s eyes gleamed with a loathing that Tal’shanri had never seen from her before, the lieutenant’s dislike for Lana ran even deeper than her loathing of Ruzzu. “I hope you’re planning to kill her—“

“I don’t kill Sith Lords unless I have to.”

“The Major said you would say that. I had hoped you would listen to reason,” Elara sounded deeply bitter for a moment. “Someday you’ll both understand. The Republic and The Empire can never co-exist; the sooner you understand that, the sooner we can get onto winning the war instead of simply surviving it.”

 


	57. "I don’t approve of getting allies needlessly killed."

“I don’t like this,” Tal’shanri looked back and forth between Ruzzu and Lo’nash who seemed deadlocked over The Major’s plan to break into groups. They had called her over to arbitrate, but Tal'sharni couldn't help but feel like The Major had expected her to simply agree to The Republic plan as opposed to considering was the Sith had to say. “We shouldn’t split up.”

“Sure take the Sith’s side! Why not just run off and join The Empire here and now!” Lo’nash was livid and her temper was clearly getting the better of her. Tal’shanri know The Major didn’t actually mean anything she said while shouting, but her taunt struck just a little closer than home than normal. “A Chiss among the Jedi, we all know you wouldn’t last! They should have left you on—“

Ruzzu raised a hand and tightened it into a fist, and the Major gripped her throat angrily as no words came out. It was the mildest force choke Tal’shanri had ever seen a Sith preform; and Lo’nash resorted to using angry gestures in protest. “When you’ve calmed down enough to be civilized I’ll let you go. Unless, of course, the Barsen’thor would like to answer for that insult?”

He looked at Tal’shanri questioningly. Aric, Vik, and Elara all had their weapons trained on the Sith and Elara looked like she was considering pulling the trigger despite the fact that they were allies. The Major snarled with no sound and gestured for Elara to go ahead shoot the Sith. Ashara put a hand on one of her sabers in warning, and Jorgan target swapped to her, and Vik to Jasea. Elara pulled the trigger, but it deflected harmlessly as Tal’shanri raised a force barrier to block the shot.

// Agree to the Major’s plan Tal’shanri.

Lana had largely stayed silent on the comm line, and Theron hadn’t said anything at all – Tal’shanri suspected the Republic comm line had simply gone dead due to signal loss as opposed to disinterest from the spy. The two advisors must have still been on Manaan and getting only a patchy signal.

“Stop. There is no need for violence.” Tal’shanri put a hand on Ruzzu’s fist, and used the other to hold the force barrier. “We’ll do it your way Major.” Lo’nash gestured at her throat and Ruzzu dropped the force choke, extending his fingers and gently taking Tal’shanri’s hand in his own and turning it over. Despite the fact that she was six foot, and the Lord Wrath only had an inch or two on her, he was built like a tank and she was slender and athletic. He hand fit easily in just the palm of his, and he examined the calluses that lined her hand, eyeing the sword on her back, trying to determine if it had always been her weapon of choice. He seemed glad to note that it obviously hadn't been.

 “You should have let Dorne take the shot—“ The Major started shouting again almost immediately, and started to draw her weapon threateningly before shaking her head and stowing it again with a growl. “My plan will work. You know I’m right and the best way to deal with Darok and Arkous is trying to talk them down first, and only after we establish what’s really going on draw them into an ambush.”

Ruzzu looked almost like he wanted to restart the argument that Arkous wouldn't fall for that, but given that Tal’shanri had already agreed and Lana had as much as ordered him to he gritted his teeth and nodded at the Major. “I’ll honor the Barsen’thor’s decision and agree to your plan as well.”

// Lana, you know I am more than a match for Arkous in single combat, it would have been the best plan to attack before he had a chance to prepare. He is going to try and kill The Major as soon as he realizes what’s happening. I don’t approve of getting allies needlessly killed, and that’s what will happened here. You have to see that.

// I do. I agree that your plan was considerably superior. However, The Major was never going to agree to it. Keeping Havoc as allies instead of enemies was worth the possible risks.

// Calculating as ever I see. Perhaps they'll give your Arkous's seat on the council once this is all over.


	58. “I knew you’d stab me in the back.”

Arkous was alone on the roof when the three of them approached, and he turned towards them with his hands behind his back and smiled broadly. “Welcome,” Lo’nash tightened her grip on her weapon but didn’t make any overly aggressive moves although Arkous’s eyes followed the small gesture. “I see you’ve properly trained your attack dog when to heel in the presence of her betters. Have you taught her any other tricks? Sit? Lay down? Play dead perhaps?”

It was killing Lo’nash not to take the bait but she stayed silent with the rest of them. “No? Pity. I’ll quite enjoy seeing The Major properly collared and compliant once this is all over with. It’s been far too long since I’ve enjoyed breaking a slave.”

Ruzzu growled at that, a deep warning threat that the other man had gone too far. “Darth Arkous. You are a Traitor to the Emperor and the Empire. You may answer for these accusations before I render final judgement on the matter.”

“Ah, Lord Wrath. Oh course.” Arkous turned his flinty smile to his fellow Sith. “Had it been another Sith I might have tried to convince them to see reason and join me. But no, you won’t see the evidence right in front of your eyes that The Emperor is dead.” Ruzzu drew his saber calmly, and shook his head with a sigh. He was clearly used to that taunt.

“I would know if that were true. He is, changed yes — but not dead.”

“Yesssss,” Darth Arkous still had the honey sweet voice with a touch of force persuade in every word Tal’shanri remembered from her dream. Lo’nash had closed her eyes and seemed to be humming something against the effects. “You convinced the rest of The Dark Council of this. But not all of us are so blinded by tradition. Even among the Republic there are those who would break the chains of the past.”

Commander Darok stepped out from behind a low wall and walked to stand by Arkous. “Major. Listen to him. You know the Republic is falling apart from the inside out, you can join us and remake the Galaxy for the better.” The Major waivered slightly at Darok’s words, and Ruzzu tensed, ready to take a leaping strike if he needed to.

“I could—“

// Stun her. Stun her now.

That was not the plan, and The Major wouldn’t easily forgive her for it, but Tal’shanri drew her blade and in one swift motion sent a blast of orange force lightning at The Major’s back. Lo’nash crumpled forward to the ground and to her credit recovered from the blast and swung her gun around to get a shot off only to find that was Tal’shanri gone.

The second time, Tal’shanri didn’t bother trying to stun The Major with lightning, instead she brought the center grip of her sword down hard against the small of The Major’s back, top edge of the blade slicing through the Trooper’s armor with a blaze of cyan light as it cut a long thin red line that would almost certainly leave a scar. “I knew it,” The Major’s eyes clouded over in pain as she spoke before collapsing, “I knew you’d stab me in the back.”

 


	59. "Don’t think you can escape justice even as a Jedi!”

“Bravo Barsen’thor,” Arkous intoned sarcastically with a fake clapping motion. “You just saved us from having to expose you as a Traitor by doing it yourself.”

His tone gave Tal’shanri an idea and she turned towards the two men, blade glowing bright enough to cast a shadow across her face as darkness gathered around her. “Colonel Darok, you will surrender.”

Arkous laughed at her, but stopped when he realized that Darok was frozen. “That won’t work, Darok is—“

“I said, Colonel Darok, you _WILL_ surrender.”

Darok wobbled slightly and Arkous looked nervous and drew his lightsaber. He could do little for Darok though, as he had to keep his eyes on Ruzzu to avoid the Wrath pouncing while his guard was down. “Stop, you don’t know what you’re doing—“

“Surrender. _**NOW**_.” Darok clutched his head and dropped to one knee, clearly in agonizing pain and only just managing to avoid screaming.

Arkous looked at Tal’shanri with real fear in his eyes. She was changing again, she could feel it, although this time it was more controlled; this time it was deliberate. This time she _wanted_ the change. “No. It can’t be true. You’re a Jedi, you can’t just—“

Ruzzu pounced as soon she he was sure the other Sith was distracted, and very nearly killed Arkous in a single blow. Even if it wasn’t a clean kill, the blow cracked Arkous’s saber and forced him to his knees.

Tal’shanri didn’t notice that. She walked slowly towards Colonel Darok, enjoying the terror on his face as she started to morph into a monster before his eyes, laughter growing deeper and more threatening until it was a truly dark and evil noise. “Stop,” he held up a hand at her as if she might still listen to him. “You can’t kill me unless you also intend on killing The Major and Havoc. The Republic will find out what you did here! Don’t think you can escape justice even as a Jedi!” There was some force behind those last words, he actually seemed to believe them.

“I don’t have to kill you,” her voice was hiss and a snarl, the sound like thunderclap at sea. Darok looked over toward Arkous, but Ruzzu had Arkous subdued on his knees and was prowling around debating on rather or not to execute his prisoner. “In fact, simply killing you would be a mercy. Like this, I can do so much worse than simply kill you.”

Ruzzu looked over at her with a warning glance at the threat in her words, but didn’t interfere even as the Dark Side swirled around her. He wasn’t there to stop her from changing, only from losing control.

Both Jedi and Sith could use the force to influence behavior; but much beyond simple suggestions ran the risk of causing permanent brain damage. It was always a match of wills, and finding the necessary conviction for much more than simple suggestions was beyond most people. Tal’shanri wasn’t most people, and in her mind there was a fixed point of absolute certainty that Darok deserved this. That what she was about to do was justified vengeance for Korriban, Tython, for his trying to turn her into a Republic Puppet, his role in the Cyborg project, all of it.

She smiled, and it was a dark twisted smile full of rage. “Let’s see what you’re afraid of Colonel.”


	60. The hot smear of tears across his face was the weeping of self-pity.

His mind was open to her with a single commanding thought; and dimly Tal’shanri could hear Darok begin to scream in the background. She was two places at once, both standing over him with her hand held curled over in a claw shaped gesture and placed against his skull; and as a ghost in his mind. Darok’s memories swirled around her specter in no particular order. One was of him as boy on a city planet buying a toy blaster with his father. Another was a long string of memories with no lines between them, a parade of battles and military victories — Darok must recall them as a blur.

Tal’shanri reached with the force and pulled for his first memory of Arkous. It was hazier than many of the others, perhaps from time perhaps from the Colonel’s own tendency to recall it that way. Arkous was off in the distance and much younger looking, his red saber glinting in the light. It was plausibly a memory of Balmorra, the grass knolls and killing fields looked like the very same one she had traversed, although less battered than the shell shattered plains she had seen. The two men locked eyes from a long distance, and there was a blur in the memory where something else happened but had since been forgotten, and in an instant Arkous had turned to flee. Where before it had been only a beleaguered battalion, now there was a triumphant army storming to the rescue. That couldn’t be right.

The memory had clearly been tampered with, but why?

A whisper in her thoughts flickered to the surface; a slow creeping gnawing realization that she could change the hazy half-forgotten memory to anything she wanted. She could warp Darok’s perception and make him believe anything, that he’d killed his own men perhaps. But no. The truth of the memory had to still be there, and a confrontation with a buried reality would be a much more fitting of a punishment. Revealing that reality was just a matter of breaking the Colonel’s willpower and bringing him to heel.

Her blade burned in her hands, glowing black now, Sith alchemy black, esh-kha blood black, she didn’t know. The memory started to burn away immediately, the lies melting away as she moved through the memory. Gone was the triumphant army. Gone was even the battalion of soldiers under his command. Left only was a crisp clear memory of Arkous with his saber to Darok’s throat, as the then Lieutenant begged for mercy surrounded by the bodies of his comrades, not all of who look like they were killed by lightsaber wounds. Tal’shanri could feel that his blaster rifle was still warm, and that the hot smear of tears across his face was the weeping of self-pity. This – this was the real memory, and it utterly burned with shame.

Ruzzu’s voice echoed from a distance, “Barsen’thor. You’re going to kill him if you don’t stop.”

She let go of the memory, and considered for a moment if revealing that single truth was enough. The dull ache of shame would haunt Darok for the rest of his life, he would never be able to bury it again the way he had when nobody else had known; because now, now she knew too. He would never speak a word against her again, she could sense his fear, his anger, the arc of emotions that had to him to kill his own men in the first place; the glowing embers of hate that Arkous had fanned all those years ago. This was only the first spark of the Dark side the Colonel had known, it had spread from this memory, touching almost every other after. It was so clear just how corrupted Darok had become – The whole Republic had become -- before he had sided with Arkous.

 There was a moment of true contemplation as Tal’shanri considered the idea of simply executing the man for his crimes. She could see them all so clearly now. Each carefully boxed up before being stowed away in the far corners of the Colonel’s mind. Hundereds of glowing dark side boxes of all the man’s sins. She opened one of the boxes, and a tortured scream escapeed, the sound given form lashing out, as it forced her to draw her weapon in defense. Awakened at the sound, the blade spoke to to her in Hallow Voice’s voice, not so much coherent words so much as instructions on what to do to shatter Darok’s mind from the guilt of his own choices.

The blade glowed with a black-hued cyan light as she struck the memory of Darok and his father – the shattered memory faded into nothing, simply gone, erased from his mind as if it had never happened. The real world commander had stopped screaming, and was convulsing on the ground while she stood over him leering. He was incapable of truly resisting, the shreds of his tattered mind that could have formed into something even close to a resistance against her long since infested with dread of what was happening, anguish of what the future held, and fear that every last one of his crimes would be revealed.

The next few memories she sliced didn’t fade away, but recombined into nightmarish chimeras; that in turn glided through his mind with sharp edges, internal knives that would continue the process long after she was gone. Guilt would consume him. Fear would drive him to the very end of sanity. He would pay for his crimes with a thousand sleepless nights of a thousand peoples’ dying screams. Cruel certainly, but, justice, well, perhaps.

She let go of his skull in the real world, back to herself, back to leering over his unconscious body. She shook her shoulders, blade heavy from the energy of breaking the Colonel’s will, and turned to Ruzzu, “He committed unspeakable crimes against the Republic spanning decades. He will be brought back to Courscant to stand trial for what he’s done. What of Arkous?”


	61. "I’ll revive her and get the angry screaming over with."

Arkous was dead.

Ruzzu shook his head sadly. “He resisted, and I could never hope to keep him restrained long enough to return to Drommund Kaas and call a proper tribunal. Such a waste. He was an excellent minister of war.”

// What happened to Colonel Darok? I heard his screams stop as well.

// The Barsen’thor shattered his mind.

// Is that even possible? I’ve heard of—

// That’s only my speculation. You’ll have to ask her yourself when you next see her.

“The Colonel may have had a point about The Major being a future liability if you let her live. What are you going to do about her?” Ruzzu’s voice was calm and controlled, but it was clear he was on the fence about what he thought of her, and Tal’shanri’s decision would influence his opinion one way or another about any future working relationship. Killing The Major would have been Lana’s suggestion – Tal’shanri didn’t need the comm line to know that, and she could tell that Ruzzu had turned it off so that the decision would be entirely her own. “Lo’nash has ordered her squad into all but certain death enough times to forgive me for saving her life by breaking the rules. I’ll revive her and get the angry screaming over with.”

Ruzzu’s eyes brightened and he grinned cheerily, “I knew you would do the right thing!” He watched as Tal’shanri put a hand on the Major’s back, and tried to summon healing energy. Nothing. The light side of the force was gone, not even a glimmer of the bright healing energy that had once flowed from her with the simplest of thoughts. She would just have to try something else then, and she focused her mind on the healing ritual she had become famous for, funneling in a different type of Force Energy to fuel the rite. A dark purple glow slowly spread from her fingertips to where she has struck The Major and settled there, pulsing a sickly shade of yellow against her green skin, and congealing on the scar.

It was an entirely different sensation then using the light side to heal; but it worked and The Major opened her eyes with a start, instantly pointing her weapon at Tal’shanri. “You—you!”

“Before you shoot me, Darok is alive but subdued, and Arkous is dead. I’m sorry I had to knock you out Major but Arkous was using the force to influence you. It was the best way to keep you safe.”

Lo’nash’s eyes were slightly unfocused and she lowered her weapon slowly. “You… We killed the Sith Lord?”

“Yes Major, we did.”

“Good, then, then, I forgive you for whatever it is you’re apologizing for Bar’snorer. Good job.” Tal’shanri laughed, and pulled the Major to her feet unsteadily. Lo’nash looked at Ruzzu, then around at Darok and Arkous and seemed befuddled. “I thought you said we killed the Sith. But one is standing there. Where’s my weapon.” She groped around drunkenly for her gun, and fell over with a tipsy-seeming misstep.

"Using the dark side to heal can often produce a tipsy like effect on those not used to it. I don’t allow Sith healers anywhere near me just for that reason." Ruzzu kept his voice low to avoid The Major overhearing as he repressed the urge to laugh at the trooper.

“Major, we’re going to call Theron now. Do you remember Theron?”

“Yes. He’s the spy. Sent us on this mission. Likes to talk a lot about himself. In denial about Jonas. More in denial then you are Bat’thor,” she waved her hand vaguely. “Why is everybody in denial so much? You should just run off with that Sith Lord who kissed you and not give a damn about what The Republic thinks because you are so obviously in love!”

Tal’shanri glanced at Ruzzu who was nearly doubled over in laughter, “Are you—“

“Lana is hearing every word of this.”

// I do admit, I much prefer The Major like this.

Tal’shanri sighed as she activated the Comm Terminal and typed in Theron’s frequency.

 


	62. "Skip ahead and tell what happened at the end. I’ll read the holonovel account later.”

Theron answered instantly, but just stared silently for a long moment. “Why does The Major look like she’s plastered, and why is The Emperor’s Wrath standing in the background?”

“That’s—“

“When isn’t it a long story?” Theron snapped and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Just. Skip ahead and tell what happened at the end. I’ll read the holonovel account later.”

“We have Darok in custody. Arkous is dead. The Esh-kha are on a rampage and going to raze the planet to the ground and wipe out every last trace of Rakata technology. That’s all the objectives completed right?”

“That. Seems like everything,” Theron brightened slightly at the account and a hint of a smile crept across his face. “Evac should be there shortly.”

The Major tried to say something but no sound came out and Tal’shanri caught Ruzzu making a force gesture to pinch her windpipe out of the corner of her eye. That was probably for the best.

“Wait--I’m detecting multiple Capital ships incoming! Both Republic and Imperial. You need to--”

Theron cut out, and four massive ships winked into existence above them. The lead ship fired a single laser burst that fried the comm terminal and shook the temple to its foundations. A few more hits like that and they would all be dead in the rubble.

Lana was still on the line somehow, probably superior Imperial equipment.

// I’m picking up the same thing, but, if I may. I might have a solution. Darok and Arkous must have come in on a personal shuttle. It will have security codes those ships will recognize. You need to find it, and fast!

Havoc Squad and Ruzzu’s Apprentices had run up the stairs to join them at the blast, and Vik grunted and picked up The Major in a shoulder carry. “I’m used to this with her,” he shrugged under her weight as she swayed against him and punched his arm with a 'gerrofff' sound.

The capital ships had moved to engage in low orbit bombardment and the temple started to rapidly crumble around them even as most of the laser volleys went wide.

“Right? Anybody remember seeing a shuttle?” Ruzzu was impeccably calm given the situation, and to everybody’s surprise, including her own, Elara answered him.

“You Sith need to brush up on your Imperial Military Procedures.” She didn’t use Ruzzu’s name or title, and instead took a moment to savor the fact that she knew something about The Empire that he didn’t. “Standard Imperial procedure for parking cloaked ships would put it,” she walked across the roof taking perfectly measured steps as she did so, “here.” There was a hiss of decompression as a door opened and a tiny shuttle appeared with a shimmer.


	63. “I love you, till the very end.”

There was a brief melee free-for-all when everybody scrambled to not be the last person wedged into the tiny shuttle. Ruzzu ended up in the single pilot’s chair almost entirely because wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Everybody else was wedged together awkwardly, and there was a unanimous wordless vow between them all that nobody was ever going to mention this again; especially given the Major’s condition and Colonel Darok’s stunned body.

Ruzzu fired up the engines and they pulled into a nearly vertical orbital climb, zipping past the first capital ship without its automatic defensive grid firing on them.  They had almost managed to escape when a masked figure appeared on the ship’s holo.

“The Emperor’s Wrath who killed me, the soldier who freed me, and the Jedi who understands me all in the same place.”

“Revan,” Ruzzu sounded completely shocked at the voice. “I wanted to save you but… I definitely left you dead.”

“What are you talking about? That’s not Revan. Revan is alive and on Taris,” Aric was half buried under Vik’s bulk and his words were muffled. “We met him there not a month ago.”

“That is definitely not a man, nor a man’s voice, what are both of you two talking about?” Tal’shanri had the best view besides Ruzzu, with her back against the wall of the ship and half leaning on the forward controls she was only a few inches from the holotransmitter. “Is there more than one Revan? Is Revan a title? We can’t all be right here.”

Nobody had an answer and in their silence Revan continued speaking. “All of you could have been valuable allies to our cause — but all of you have been blinded by outside loyalties, and for that all of you must die.”

A squad of tie-fighters launched from the closest capital ship and Ruzzu grimaced as he tightened his grip on the controls and checked a sensor reading. “Ninty seconds until we can jump to hyperspace and they’ll be on us before then. We have no weapons and no shields, and maneuverability is low.”

“Anybody have any last words?” Ashara spoke up, and the Togruta’s eyes went slightly misty. “There is no Death, there is only the Force seems poor comfort at a time like this, but, if anybody else has anything better to say this is their last chance.”

“I love you, till the very end.” Aric looked up at Lo’nash and The Major had a tear in her eye as she put a hand on his cheek.

“At least we die together.”

The other six people on the ship all attempted to shuffle to give the Major her husband one last moment together, and managed to allow the couple the space for an embrace and a passionate kiss.

Ruzzu had his eyes closed, and Tal’shanri could sense him pushing the force to let him reach across the stars and say goodbye to his family one last time. There were so many things he had wanted to do still, so many places he had wanted to take his sons. Yet, the Sith simply accepted that if this was the end, he had done all he could. Never before, not even from a Jedi, had Tal’shanri sensed such calm in the face of death. 

Her own thoughts drifted for a moment. To Tython and the riverside glades that felt like discovering long lost secrets; to the sweeping vistas of Aldderan from a Thranta’s eye view; to the ruins of anicent Jedi temples found the crystal caves of Ilum; to the clattering of boots running across the deck of an Imperial Cruiser. She had done so much in so little time, and Tal’shanri reached for the calm before death that she had been taught her whole life she would find, and she could sense Ruzzu had found. 

The Force refused her pleas.

There was still a destiny out there for her to fulfill. 

For an instant Tal'shanri could see fragments of her future. It was different the the metaphors of both the Voss and the Esk-kha used to see the future. There was a single anchor point for all she saw, stretching out for years into the future, and that was that through all of it, Lana was always by her side. 

There was a green glint of laser fire overhead and everybody closed their eyes at once, waiting for the final impact.

Nothing.

Ruzzu scrambled at the controls and hit the hyperdrive the second they were clear, and there was a single brief glimpse of Tal’shanri’s ship through the window as they leapt forward into hyperspace and safety.

Stars she loved that ship.

“Now that we're not gonna die, can we stop at the nearest habitable asteroid?” Vik grumbled, “I’ll wait there with our not-a-dead body rather than spend any more time stuck like this.”

Ashara muttered something that sounded like agreement, as did Elara.

“Fifteen minutes to a free trading post,” Ruzzu had simply used the last coordinates entered for the initial jump, and was busy reconfiguring the navi-computer to take them somewhere else. “Can we all live that long?”

There were four nos in reply to his question. “Too bad. I’m driving.”


	64. "This new Jedi friend thinks their dad is a real true hero.”

Two astromechs beeped in surprise as eight people all scrambled out of a ship meant for two. Darok was still catatonic and the group left him on the ship while they figured out what to do.

“Havoc will take Colonel Darok to Coruscant for questioning,” The Major stated firmly. “We’ll call for a military transport. We can stay here for some R&R in the meantime — that’s not license to gamble Vik!”

“My apprentices and I will wait here as well, my ship was in a stealth orbit around one of the moons of Rakata prime and it will be a small matter to contact my crew with our new location. We should be gone before morning if Havoc will kindly agree to not attempt anything before then.”

The Major nodded and eyed Elara, who didn’t bother hiding her disappointment.

“Would you like a ride somewhere with us?” Ruzzu extended the offer with a genuine smile at the thought. “Your ship may have been destroyed in rescuing us, and I owe it to you to make sure you’re not stranded before I return to Imperial Space. Malavai would be delighted to meet you.”

Lo’nash glared and seemed annoyed that she hadn’t thought to make the offer first.

// Theron contacted me. Your ship is on its way back to Manaan, although the selkath have pre-emptively impounded it pending your return to fill out the proper paperwork.

“Manaan perhaps?” Ruzzu was verbalizing that for The Major’s benefit, as a gentle reassurance to her that he wasn’t intending to abduct Tal’shanri. “Neutral ground for us to part ways.”

“Thank you Lord Wrath, but I’ll take the shuttle. I don’t think we would ever escape the news headlines if The Emperor’s Wrath and the Barsen’thor of the Jedi Order suddenly seemed to be friends.”

“I don’t know, I think a photo of you and Theron Shan in that closet would give the tabloids even more of a fit…” The Major raised her eyebrows suggestively. “What was your fake Sith name again?”

Ruzzu looked intrigued at this new development and Tal’shanri glared at daggers at The Major. The eight of them standing in a rundown docking bay on the edge of charted space teasing each other; it was nothing like what she had been told family was like, and yet, this felt like it could almost be one.

Tal’shanri didn’t reply to that, and The Major made an exaggerated kissing face. “Give Theron a kiss while you’re on Manaan,” she grinned and laughed, “and tell him Havoc Squad is off active duty for the next,” she glanced at her wrist display before giving up. “Until I call him. We have a Cantina to find and a victory to celebrate!”

The four of them headed off, and Elara didn’t even turn around to get one last glare in at The Lord Wrath, she was too busy arguing with Vik while Jorgan and the Major were arm and arm and whispering conspiratorially.

“The three of us have business to attend to,” Ruzzu still seemed intrigued by the idea of her as a Sith and for a second it looked like he might say something else before leaving. “Your comm link should be capable of picking up Imperial transmissions from here on out, I would see about getting it upgraded so you can reply back though.”

He turned to go, “If you ever do want to join The Empire, it would be my honor to induct you. You would be welcome among The Sith.” His sincerity was obvious, and Tal’shanri couldn’t help but find the offer just a tiny bit tempting but she shook her head.

“There is one thing you can do for me Lord Wrath.”

“Name it and it will be done.”

“Make sure Lana ends up ok now that Arkous is dead. She… means a lot to me.”

Ruzzu nodded, “I believe I know a Darth who would take her on as an assistant at my request.” He paused before his voice became solemn, “Tal’shanri, Lord Beniko trusts you. She,” he searched for a moment for the right words, “she has seen you in her dreams for so long I think she’s afraid moving too fast might drive you away — but make no mistake, she is every bit the passionate Sith Lord people say. Her loyalty to you, I hear it every time she talks to you. Lana would move the stars themselves for you if you asked her to, and one day I think she will.”

Tal’shanri pulled Ruzzu into a hug, a real hug, and didn’t say anything for a long moment before she managed to get control of her voice enough to keep from sounding weepy, “Tell your boys that you made a new Jedi friend today, and that your new Jedi friend realized just wrong she was for judging people she has never met and this new Jedi friend thinks their dad is a real true hero.” Ruzzu tucked a strand of Tal’shanri’s hair behind her cheek, and for a second she almost thought she saw a tear in his eye.

“Good bye Barsen’thor. May The Force be with you.”

“And may the Force ever serve you Lord Wrath.”


	65. The long wait that was any bureaucratic process on Manaan.

The shuttle’s hyperdrive was older, and the trip back to Manaan took twice as long as it had heading out with all the required cool down stopovers. Being alone was a solace Tal’shanri hadn’t realized she had needed until it was only her and the chug of the ship’s engine.

Colonel Darok would never recover from having his mind shattered. The Sith alchemy beast inside her was content for the moment with its new found power for destruction. It plotted and seethed just under her skin but waited for the moment, it knew her now, and knew that she would feed it soon enough. Tal’shanri could also tell there was a satisfaction radiating from the blade, not about Darok, but at the fact that she had technically stabbed Lo’nash in the back unprovoked.

Finally one jump from Manaan Tal’shanri activated the shuttle’s comm link and called Lana. The Sith Lord picked up instantly, probably Tal’shanri realized, because the shuttle was still using Arkous’s outgoing codes.

There was visible relief in Lana’s eyes when she saw that it wasn’t Arkous somehow back from the dead, but it lasted only a second before there was icy rage in her eyes. “It’s good to see you Barsen’thor. Theron and I will be waiting for you on the surface. We have much to discuss.” Lana cut the feed and transmitted docking codes without letting her reply.

Tal’shanri couldn’t help but wish that she could trade and have a dark lord waiting to ambush her over the prospect having to stay calm and in control enough to behave diplomatically in front the Selketh. She knew how to fight — but dealing with Lana, Theron, and the selketh all at the same time was not her type of battle.

She stepped into the hanger planet side and there were four dozen guards alongside Lana and Theron. “You could have just asked me to come peacefully, there was no need for so many guards.”

Ambassador Shuuru elbowed his way past the guards and stood next to Lana and Theron, “With all due respect Barsen’thor, we disagree. You've escaped justice for the last time!”

Tal’shanri looked at Lana, who inclined her head subtly indicating Tal’shanri should comply, and then walked down the ramp and followed Shuuru flanked by the huge armed escort. She didn’t resist as the selkath guards gestured for her to stand on an energy cell platform, the orange force field flickered on at the press of a button, and resigned herself to the long wait that was any bureaucratic process on Manaan.

“One visitor at a time,” one of the guards eyed Lana and Theron who both looked like they wanted to stab him. “Mistress Beniko has priority, you’ll have to come back later Agent Shan.”

Theron stormed out wordlessly, and the guard stared at Lana expectantly, “A moment alone first, and then we’ll complete our business.” He nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him and leaving the two of them finally alone.


	66. "Soon you’ll be gone and all I’ll have left are dreams, memories of a few fleeting moments."

Lana put her hand to the force cage, and looked at Tal’shanri with a burning anger in her eyes, but one directed not at her, but at the situation. “Damn the selkath and their paperwork! You saved the galaxy and all they want to do is put you in a cage to save face; once I get you out of here I am going to personally wring the slimey neck of any selkath responsible for this!”

Tal’shanri raised her own hand to match Lana’s, and leaned against the energy barrier flexing it just enough to approximate a soft touch, and Lana’s eyes flicked upwards to meet Tal’shanri’s gaze in surprise at the gesture, “Lana, look, I owe you an explanation. I owe you lots of explanations, more then we have time for, but, one most of all,” for a second Lana seemed to doubt herself, and tensed slightly clearly expecting to hear something she didn’t want to. “I should have told Theron I wasn’t interested a long time ago. That was a mistake.”

“It’s always been you in my dreams, your golden hair, your golden eyes, you.” She emphasized each you in the sentence, and for one of the first times in her life didn’t try to hide the emotion in her words. “It was you I thought about on that shuttle when we all thought we were going to die. Lana…” Tal’shanri trailed off and hung her head voice falling to a whisper. “I know I’m going to lose you; that soon you’ll be gone and all I’ll have left are dreams; memories of a few fleeting moments; but I've seen the future, and--" 

 “I’ll find a way to see you again,” Lana interrupted, and her voice had a dangerous edge to it, one that masked a deep anger about the whole situation. “I swear I will.”

The guard returned with a knock although Lana didn't move. Hand pressed against the force field she stared at Tal’shanri, trying to hold every last detail of the other woman in her mind. “I wanted so much more than that single kiss that night in the hanger,” her voice fell to little more than a whispered murmur. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Mistress Beniko. The call for you is urgent, from the Dark Council. You have to take this now,” the voice behind the door was insistent and Lana turned and was gone without another word.


	67. “You and I meanwhile are the newest tabloid headlines."

Time passed agonizingly slowly, the temporary holding cell was barely big enough for her to sit cross legged to meditate. A guard returned at some point with a ration bar, but left without offering any clues as to what was going on. After what Tal’shanri would have guessed to be a day, two dozen guards came and moved her to a larger cell, this one a full sized room behind an energy shield containing minimal furniture. It reminded her a little bit of the Padawan quarters on Tython.

“Theron Shan to see you,” there were two armed guards that paced the hallway, and one stayed just outside the cell as the shield lowered just long enough to let Theron pass through.

He looked exhausted, but didn’t let the fatigue slow him. He activated a small device designed to broadcast white noise before jumping straight into things, “The Lord Wrath saved Lana’s life, but she’s still in trouble with the Dark Council over Arkous's death. She’s going to have to disappear for a while; as am I actually.”

“Wha—“

“Everybody involved with the mission to Rakata Prime, we’ve all suddenly found ourselves being blamed for things we didn’t do. The Wrath is rumored to have had to kill both his apprentices in front of the whole council as a loyalty test. Havoc got reorganized the second they landed on Coruscant — unsparingly. Vik is in a high security prison, Elara is being held as a traitor, Yuun was shunted to an office job in maintenance working with the Gree, and they sent Aric to the worst hot zone on Quesh. The Major is stuck playing politics to fight it.”

“You and I meanwhile are the newest tabloid headlines,” Theron held up his datapad to reveal a particularly unflattering photo of himself. “They’re being much nicer to me than you in all honesty,” he chuckled mirthlessly. “There’s a long list of people who swear they’ve slept with you. It’s obviously a hit job, and a bad one given how few Jedi read this trash, but I can’t exactly keep my job as a spy when everybody from here to Hoth will have seen my picture.”

Theron glanced around the room, hands in his pockets, and he walked over the table with two chairs in the center of the room, and leaned on one of them before he continued in a low voice. “You’ve been removed from the Jedi Council — temporarily. The Grandmaster,” Theron closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. Tal’shanri had noticed he only ever used Satele’s title when he was frustrated with something she had done. “Is concerned that you’ve become reckless lately.”

“She’s right be concerned,” Theron looked up at Tal’shanri with a new respect in his eyes, “If I had been more circumspect in keeping you at a distance it would have been much harder for the tabloids to smear both of us. I shouldn’t have let you think there could be anything between us.”

He looked hurt but nodded. “I should have seen that coming I suppose.”

A companionable silence fell between them where Theron seemed lost in thought before he finally asked, “Is it true about you and Lana?”

“Yes,” Tal’shanri said simply.

“Did The Major harass you enough about it for ten life times or do you need to hear it from me too?” Tal’shanri laughed at that, and Theron winked teasingly. “I won’t wish you luck, given everything, but I do understand.”

His smile faded into a business-like expression, “Lana and I have a lead on who might be responsible for this, but, we’ll have to go deep undercover to track it down. One of us will contact you once we have something actionable, until then, May the Force be with you Tal’shanri.”

Theron turned to leave and then remembered something and pulled a massive stack of actual physical paperwork out of his bag and dropped it in on the table. “Triplicate forms to get your ship back. Enjoy.”

 


	68. "Knowing the Jedi Order, you’ll never get this much time to relax again.”

****

Epilogue

“You have been sentenced to ninety-days in holding for your role in the destruction of our underwater colony. No further penalties will be assessed, and no charges will be added to your records should your confinement pass without incident.” The Selkath judge dropped his gavel and the bank of lawyers all moved off.

Felix, Nadia, Tharan, Qyzen, and even Zenith were all there – and there was a relieved sigh from the group that it hadn’t been much, much worse. Felix clapped her on the shoulder with a grin. “Three months is nothing. Try three years on Hoth.”

Tharan and Zenith both groaned at the lame joke they had heard a thousand times before.

“It means a lot that you all came out for the trial,” Tal’shanri smiled at each of them in turn. “I know you’ve all moved on with your lives, but, it was good to be among friends for this.”

“Will always honor Herald,” Qyzen clasped a hand across his shoulder and nodded before he vanished into the throng of selkath. Trandoshans weren’t exactly welcome on Manaan and he knew not to overstay his very limited time here.

Zenith and Tharan swapped looks before leaning in and whispering, “We upgraded your ship again as a parting gift.” Tharan’s voice was giddy, “it’s not a full copy of Holiday; but you’ll find the AI much better now. Working with the SiS has proved, quite intriguing!”

“You’re just glad that the SiS lets you do side projects,” Zenith snorted, “I restocked the ships munitions supply, and left you the finest prototype droid in preproduction on Balmorra; we haven’t gotten all the programming kinks out from its personality matrix, but, you tolerated us for years.”

Nadia and Felix lingered as Zenith and Tharan both finished saying goodbye, as neither of them wanted to leave her side. Tal’shanri turned towards Nadia, “Nadia Grell. Jedi Knight. I couldn’t be prouder of you.” Nadia blushed and giggled at Tal'shanri's words.

“I did start with the best teacher in the whole Jedi Order!” There was a sadness in Nadia’s eyes as she added, “I know you didn’t do all the things those awful things, but you are different now. The Grandmaster has been troubled by visions of you. If you tell me they can’t be true, I’ll believe you Barsen’thor.” Tal’shanri didn’t answer. The same dreams had troubled her too. Silence was confirmation to Nadia of a terrible, terrible, truth and she slipped for a moment from Jedi Knight to scared young girl and wrapped Tal’shanri in a hug.

And this time, Tal’shanri pulled Nadia close and rubbed her back gently, softly whispering, “Hush little one. I promise it will be ok.”

“So long as the Jedi Order has you on our side, I know it will be.”

They didn’t break the hug until Felix coughed politely in the background and Nadia recomposed herself into being a Jedi Knight again, “May the force be with you always Barsen’thor.”

“Maybe the force be with you Nadia.”

Which left Felix.

“I know the truth.” Felix stayed back and leaned on the courtroom railing, “Theron called from an asteroid on the edge of wild space to let me know that none of the rumors about you two were true, and that you had gone off and saved the galaxy again.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Only that Havoc Squad could use a man like me.” Felix smiled, “I turned him down in favor of staying on with the Jedi Order. Somebody has to fly the ship and stab the occasional Sith Lord through the neck after all.”

“I’m sorry I left you like that.”

Felix took a step forward and then thought better of it. “I lied, Theron did mention one other thing. He did tell me that you were seeing somebody else. Nothing beyond that. Just that I should move on with my life.”

“There’s plenty of good women in the galaxy Felix. You’ll find one who will look at you every morning the same way you looked at me on Tython. You’re too good a man to settle for anything less. I expect an invite to your wedding when it happens you know.”

“Deal.” He took the first few steps away from her backwards, trying to remembering her just the way she was right then, because he could sense that he would never see her like this again, that she had changed so much since Tython and there was a darkness in her now, one that was sleeping for the moment, but that would awaken again soon enough.

Then she was alone.

Not entirely alone. Her selkath lawyer who had stepped away now returned. “I’m impressed. Mistress Beniko’s bribe to the judge must have been larger than I thought. He didn’t announce it, but the text of the ruling includes time served as part of the ninety-days. You’ll be free to go in just over a month; also you’ll be accorded full access to private suites instead of your former cell.”

He handed her a set of keys and his whiskers twitched in amusement as he added, “Think of these next thirty days as extended vacation on the Galaxy’s most beautiful ocean planet. Knowing the Jedi Order, you’ll never get this much time to relax again.”

 


End file.
